Hashing It Out With Hashtags

So still asking, "What do I do with Twitter?" Still not feeling the Twitter love? Then let your humble host of The BeanCast tell you about a feature that is rising in importance daily and may be the killer app for this social networking tool.

Okay you Twitter-experts, go ahead and tune out. Time for hashtag 101: A hashtag is a simple thing, really. It's not programmed into the system. It's not some special application. The hashtag is nothing more than an agreed-upon standard by the Twitter community that says if you have a topic, note is with a "#." So if you're watching the Grammys and you want to discuss the show with other people watching the Grammys, but don't want to follow like 100,000 new people, you post #Grammys somewhere in your relevant messages. Then using the search or trending features built into most of the newer Twitter clients, you search out all the other posts with the same tag and viola! You're following the #Grammys stream.

Hopefully your imagination is suddenly open by the above, but if not let me explain further.

Twitter is inherently a good information dissemination and listening tool. It allows you to follow people who are interesting and be heard by people who you want to reach. Whether you're a brand seeking to relate to customers or an individual trying to achieve pseudo-fame status, it connects you to an audience.

However, if all you use Twitter for is the opportunity to follow and be followed, you miss out on valuable community conversation. Because while my example above is admittedly shallow, it's the least of the conversations going on.

When you drill down, Monday nights there's #journochat that connects journalists with PR professionals, helping them each to understand the needs of the other. Similarly on Wednesday night there's #editorchat, which does the same thing with editors. There are chats for events like #sxsw where attendees can connect with each other before, during and after an event. Even The BeanCast could have a #beancast tag if you really felt the over-riding need to discuss a marketing podcast for some reason.

Brands can use this to no end. Simple searches can reveal conversations that involve your products or the needs your services fulfill, and can put you directly into these discussions. Or creating your own hashtags can give you the opportunity to create your own conversations with loyalists to gain insight and feedback.

With a simple, unplanned use of an age-old online tool, the hashtag, the Twitter community is creating for itself the one thing that will make it invaluable going forward. Because as understanding of hashtags grows, Twitter is evolving away from a "popularity contest" model into a true community-building tool. It's creating community conversations among the larger population that draw like-minded people together. It's essentially cutting through the chaff and giving you contact with people from whom you might actually gain something by following. And it's also giving you forums in which you yourself can be seen and recognized as valuable.

Now, of course, as with all things Twitter this is not a promotional opportunity. So don't be going to #lost and start offer 10% discounts and telling them I sent you. I would SOOOOO not appreciate that. However, this is your chance to represent your brand identity. It's your opportunity to interact with people who might actually care about what you have to say, but haven't found you valuable yet. So don't squander the opportunity by trying to meet sales goals. Use it as a chance to showcase the value of being more than just a customer of your brand. Show them what it means to have a relationship with you. As with all things based in customer interaction, loyalty and PR, don't be surprised if the people with whom you interact start doing some selling for you.