Hashtags: You’re Doing it Wrong

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By Chancelor Shay, Account Executive

You just wrote a solid 115-character quip on your deeper analysis of a common observation that you’re sure will get at least five retweets and a handful of favorites from your followers. But you have 140 characters worth of space. You can’t just waste 25 characters, but the current draft already reflects perfect wording. What do you do? Of course! Add a hashtag!

That seems to be the thought process behind many of the tweets I see stream across my somewhat-cluttered Twitter stream. As a professional communicator, it’s bothersome that these tweeters don’t have the courtesy to ask themselves, “How does this add value to my message for my followers?” Meaningless hashtags are so prevalent that I considered whether or not the majority of tweeters understand what a hashtag is and its purpose. It’s not as absurd a question as I thought, made apparent when lifelong broadcaster and Emmy Award recipient Vin Scully asked “What is hashtag?” on live TV.

The simple answer to Scully’s question, of course, is a search indexing tool for Twitter that allows the site to more easily sort messages focused on a specific topic. The hashtag allows for a collective discussion around a single topic, whether it be a conference or trade show, current event of interest to masses of people, or an informational theme such as “dailymotivation” or “fitnesstips.” This helps the Twitter community build their social network with people who provide content they’d enjoy.

But just how the use of texting has evolved from its initial purpose as it’s been adopted, so too has the hashtag.  

We’ve seen the “hashtag as the punch line of a joke” tweets. Ending a message about a trip to Dog Beach might be #Wetdogsmellairfreshener. Capping off a confession of love for Nutella we could expect #NoreallyIcouldeatNutellaateverymeal. Or concluding an observation of road workers sitting down on their lunch break someone might announce #Mytaxdollarsarepayingforyoutoeatasandwich. I’m not convinced others will search any of those hashtags with interest in joining the conversation.

Then there are hashtags that were invented specifically so that anyone interested can join the conversation and offer an opinion. These are hashtags like #WeCan’tDateIfYou and #ThingsshorterthanKimKardasiansmarriage. Rather than being a reactionary product to something else, there is no reasoning for these hashtags to exist beyond the fact that they can exist.

The variations of hashtags are so vast that, in their quest for constant irony as a counter culture, hipsters adopted the hashtag #hashtag. Is it ironic? More like self defeating.

So are hashtags a trend? Will they go the way of Ed Hardy T-shirts and Von Dutch trucker hats?

Essentially, as online conversing continues to become the status quo, the hashtag is showing characteristics of natural language. People are manipulating, misusing and experimenting with it. They’re the opposite of a trend because they’re not one thing and are constantly evolving. In that sense, I guess, explaining the “right” way to use a hashtag is like explaining the right way to deliver a joke or what facial expression is correct for the subject of discussion. You can’t define what’s “right.” In the same way you can’t stop that one co-worker from winking after each sarcastic statement he makes, you can’t stop tweeters from hashtagging every other word in their message. But you can unfollow them. #Winning 

Think you're following 1,000 Tweeps? Actually it's closer to 40.

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Twitter's supercharged adoption rates have taken it from nine million unique visitors in March to 17 million in April.

But recent scrutiny of Twitter adoption rates have turned up two interesting results:

• 60% of users who start an account abandon it within a month. (Source: Nielsen)
• 10% of its active users are responsible for 90% of the Tweets. (Source: Harvard Business School)

Based on these metrics, while my account might indicate that I'm following 2,000 people on Twitter, I'm actually following more like 800 (40% of 2,000). And, 10% of them--80 people--are responsible for 90% of what I see. The other 720 folks are responsible for a smattering of Tweets.

To see if these numbers bore out, I reviewed an hour of incoming Tweets and counted closer to 150 individuals and news feeds of which no more than 10 people or outlets were responsible for multiple Tweets. This is not scientific by any means, but it tells me I'm following users who are twice as active as the average. This is what I'd expect to see since I tend to follow other communicators and journalists; however, it still illustrates the point that only a small percentage of followers are consistently contributing to Twitter.

What do these trends mean for communicators and their clients? Well, for one, it means Ashton Kutcher does not have 2.1 million followers -- he has 840,000, max of which 84,000 would fall into that most active 10% and who are, therefore, likely to be on Twitter at the moment he sends a Tweet. And now the question is whether that's the 84,000 who really care what Kutcher has to say? (And could it be that high? ;-)

But enough about Kutcher. What this post is intended to illustrate is that amassing large audiences is not as important as targeting and attracting followers that care about and share your interests.

And, in that respect, social media is no different than all forms of communication that preceded it. The first commandment remains 'know thy audience.'

If you're being followed by 1,000 people, keep in mind that 600 of them are no longer using Twitter because they didn't get it. Of the 400 remaining, only 40 of them can be expected to really engage.

So take stock and identify who those 40 people are, find more like them, serve that audience as best you can, and consider cutting loose those who may be cluttering your communications rather than adding to them. Approach your social networks with the same discipline you use to build a direct mail or media list--you want the highest response rate possible so pay close attention to your followers' profile.

And if you're someone who is an above average user on Twitter, help newcomers and encourage them to stay by engaging with them, recommending TweetDeck and other tools that improve the experience, and so on. Think of it as your community service.