9
Dec
What are these hashtags, you ask
Recently there has been a sudden surge of Estate Agents signing
up to twitter in an attempt to harnesses the sheer power of social
networks and social media to pull traffic towards their Estate Agent website.
We’ve covered social media a lot with articles on ‘Don’t get lost in the social media
jungle’ and ‘Become a twitter spy’. The point of
this article is not to promote Twitter, but to inform Estate Agents
on the proper use of hashtags in Twitter.
Hashtags are actually a very simple tool to use, but a few users
out there get it magnificently wrong.
Twitter defines hashtags as a helpful way to add tweets to a
category tweets. When you place a # in front of a word and tweet
it, you will notice that it is highlighted. This means that Twitter
has recognised it as a hashtag, linking it to a twitter search for
only that hashtag.
For this reason, the hashtag has become very popular for events
and breaking news.
So what can Estate Agents do about hashtags?
Firstly they can look for hashtags that are
trending in their local area. As mentioned above, Hashtags will
occur with local news and festivals or events. Estate Agents should
not simply ride on these trends and use them to promote – any
monkey can do that – what Estate Agents should do is use
these local trends to engage with the local populous.
Try third party websites such as hashtags.org and trendistic.com to
watch the popularity of trends global and national trends. To truly
see hyper-local trends, keep your eyes and ears open for events
that are being marketed through twitter whilst also watching your
local followers.
Secondly do not overuse hashtags. Hashtags have
their use but can quickly look like spam if overused. For example,
using hashtags for every single word, or most words, it will look
like spam. It’s obvious but anything that looks like spam
will simply be ignored or unfollowed – you have been
warned.
Lastly, have you noticed a local incident without a hashtag?
Think about the types of hashtags that could be created. Any
insightful, funny or clearly missing hashtag will simply be
adopted.
James Coyne eMarketing and Social Media
Consultant
Back to Top