#Hashtags in Social Networking

www.DennisDavisPhotography.com

The # sign, known as the pound sign or hash mark, is now a part of a rapidly growing trend. Popular on Twitter for some time, it is now everywhere on Instagram, common and beautiful on Google Plus, and was just put into practice with still a few bugs on Facebook in summer 2013.

Hashtags are just keywords that help people within your social community find each other and postings of similar interests. For example, if you were posting a photograph of yourself fishing on the pier in Santa Monica, you might write a title about your image such as “I hope I catch a #fish here in #SantaMonica Other people who fish can click on the #fish hash tag, and find your picture, along with hundreds of other fish related images. People who live in Santa Monica and think you are a sexy guy can click on the #SantaMonica hash tag and see other pictures that you have posted of yourself with that hash tag, and also pictures of some other better looking guys in Santa Monica that don’t smell like fish.

It doesn’t matter if it is upper or lower case, the #HasHTaGs work the same regardless of letter case. However, note that there cannot be a space after the # pound sign; the first letter must start with no space after the symbol. On many social networks, when you start typing a hashtag, the site tries to guess what you are writing, and offers several hashtags to choose from. It makes it faster and easier.

Photography by DennisDavisPhotography.com

So let’s say you want to promote your vegetarian restaurant in Hollywood called “Veggies Gone Wild”. How could you use #hashtags to promote your business and find more customers? Let’s say you posted a picture from one of your menu items, Blueberry Rice Pudding. In the caption of the photograph you can write Blueberry Rice Pudding #vegetarian #hollywood #desserts #veggiesgonewild #restaurants #restaurantshollywood #vegetarianrestaurants Normally I only write two – four keywords, and Twitter only allows 140 words per tweet, so you must pick your keywords carefully. Because that’s what #hashtags are, simply #keywords to help people find things on the web easier.

http://www.DennisDavisPhotography.com

When a news topic or idea is “trending” on Twitter, it normally means that a particular hashtag is getting a lot of traffic. If the new iPod 29 was just released, you might see hashtags trending such as #apple #iPods #iTunes #iPod29. If Brad Pitt was just with seen with a new tattoo of a butterfly on his arm, you might see trending hashtags of #bradpitt #bradpitttattoo #tattoos #celebritytattoos #celebrity #butterflytattoos and so forth. These hashtags allow people with similar interests to find one another and form an on-line community on the social network of their choice.

#SEO #socialnetworking #hashtags #instagram #twitter #facebook #googleplus #SEObusiness