Wondering what is actually a hashtag? Well, here is your answer. These are simply keywords antedated by a hash (#) symbol. It makes them both linkable and searchable on twitter.
Let me give an example so that you can understand the concept more clearly. Suppose, you wish to find out what all is going on between twitter users on the topic of ‘iPhone’. All you need to do is type the phrase “iPhone” (excluding the quotes) in the search field of twitter and in return you will get the related results on iPhone. One thing you might not have noticed all these years that the results you get on the term “iPhone” are not linkable and just bolded out.
Now, what you need to do is trying searching it with the help of hashtag “#iPhone”. One thing you need to keep in mind while typing the phrase is that hashtags should be continuous without any spaces in between and also they are insensitive towards cases. And now when the search is complete you will find that “#iPhone” is now actually linkable. By clicking the hashtag in any tweet you get access to live feeds of every tweet which has a hashtag in it. By clicking the bar which says “x new streets” you find the latest tweets till date.
The definition for hashtag according to twitter is “themes for your tweets”. In a more simple language you can say you are assigning a unique theme to your tweets with the help of hashtags. By putting a hashtag in the tweet, one is assuming that it will be searched by the individuals who would be interested in the same subject. This will allow millions of users all over the world to see your tweet who are interested in the certain hashtag. This is a really amazing and powerful tool just like twitter lists as it gives you the opportunity to be seen by people who are not even your followers.
When a certain hashtag is used by thousands of twitter users simultaneously then it is referred to as “trend”. The benefit of making a hashtag trendy is that it might appear on the home page of twitter because of its popularity. Therefore, it will be available to millions of people using twitter.
Hashtags can be converted into a de facto if used over and over again for a certain topic. And when a particular hashtag is used to identify tweets on a certain topic, it is known as twitter chat. With the use of hashtag participants in the chat need not waste time in explaining what are they talking about rather they would simply include the adequate hashtag, which will make everyone appear on the same page.
As hashtag is so useful people tend to forget its actual purpose, which is fun. Try having little bit of fun by using hashtags by creating funny hashtags and who knows that it might end being a trendy topic on twitter.
