Hashtagging...a dumb question...

[mjr]

I'm not much into "social media" right now. I may be, later, but right now I don't have a FaceBook account, and I don't post on my Twitter feed very often.

That said, I don't understand why a lot of people feel they need to "hashtag" everything. Can someone please explain that to me?? I mean, there's even a term for people who "hashtag" some sort of cause: slacktivism (slacker activism).

Someone please explain this to me. I'm 38, so I'm not old, but I just don't get it...

[lordlundar]

Because it's trendy!!!

No really, that's all there is to it.

[Mytical]

Hashtag is something for twitter (for the most part). When you hashtag a twitter post, it goes into whatever you hashtag it for. Everybody who uses the hashtag, and follows whatever, will get updates for that hashtag. While some try to use it for social changes, its like posting here (or any other website). Posting about it won't change anything, but as the above person said .. it is trending.

[mjr]

I've heard that people can "hashtag" on other social media, as well...

I guess I'm just not that into it. I think at some point I will have to give in, I just don't think I really have anything that interesting to share with anyone. If I were to create a FaceBook page, it would most likely only be in a "professional" capacity, and therefore I probably would not "follow" or "like" or "accept friend requests" from a lot of people, which, based on what I know about FaceBook, would probably get my account flagged for deletion for not having enough "friends".

[Shangri-laschild]

I don't get when a paragraph is full of hashtags. Like the sentences are broken up by them and they seem to be put in odd random places. It confuses me quite a bit.

[KiaKat]

The original concept of hashtagging made sense. Add a word or phrase that ties together a series of posts from multiple people, written with a special character intended to trigger a specific database response. For example, a coulple weeks ago, an important figure in the wine world passed away. He was someone who inspired a generation of serious oenophiles and industry bigs. So Twitter and Facebook were blowing up with his name, his winery's name, and a few other connected phrases. By using hashtags, it was easier to find who had written about him and what they were saying.

These days, it's used more in sarcasm. Which can be frustrating if I'm trying to find info on, say, a social movement or major event.

[EricKei]

You can even tag your starting posts (in a new thread) on here, but it's done so seldom that it hasn't made an impact Nobody really bothers.

The point of hashtagging is that Twitter (et al) track the uses of a given tag/username, which lets them figure out what's popular -- among other things, I'm fairly certain this influences advertising placement and rates.

I think FB allows hashtagging, tho you can already alert someone else in a post there by typing their name (must use proper capitalization or it won't work). If you allow FB to autocomplete the name, they should get a "X mentioned you in a post" notification in their feed. You can limit it to first name only by doing the autocomplete, then deleting the last name, e.g., have it autocomplete "Eric Kei TehAwesomeGuy", delete everything but "Eric," and it'll still notify the person you tagged.

[BlaqueKatt]

These days, it's used more in sarcasm.

IT's also used for some really fun "games"

#worstdateinfivewords
#addawordruinamovie

[Tama]

Or for exaggeration/punctuation/etc...Adding a word that says a lot about how you're feeling without breaking the holy letter limit.

Like "broke my personal crunch record #Oww "