Archive
Twitter hashtags: the ones to remember (or bookmark!)
As I find myself spending hours on social media, I constantly rely on my saved searches for Twitter. I have produced this short but comprehensive list of my top used hashtags on Twitter, great for adding to Tweetdeck. I hope you also find it useful if you are a writer or are interested in social media. As a general rule of thumb hashtags help give a ‘tweet’ context. For those who are not familiar with hashtags it is simply the # symbol followed by the subject or keyword related to the tweet.
Studies show that hashtags can increase engagement by 50% (1.5x) for brands and each tweet using a hashtag is more visible. This in turn means you will gather more Twitter followers. (Data taken from ‘Twitter for Journalists’ PDF).
The best hashtags on Twitter
This is by no means a definitive list just a few of the best; I will add to it as and when.
General: #news, #love, #photography, #fashion, #health, #fail, #followfriday, #competition, #win, #bloggers, #writing, #mustread, #beauty, #music, #follow, #book, #travel
Business: #jobs, #business, #sales, #economy, #marketing,#socialmedia, #startup, #retail, #smallbusiness, #tech, #SMBs, #restaurant, #csr
Tech: #android, #androidgames,#iphone, #iphonegames, #ipad,#ipadgames, #app
Education: #edtech, #education, #lrnchat, #teachers, #edu, #edtools, #school, #edchat, #ptchat
Environment: #climate, #solar, #globalwarming, #drought, #environment, #green
Social Change: #socialgood, #cause, #volunteer, #4change, #charity, #nonprofit, #philanthropy, #aid, #climate, #sustainability, #earthtweet, #eco, #fairtrade
Sport: #sports, #football, #sportsnews, #rugby, #f1, #active, #fitness, #lifestyle, #tennis, #footy, #…followed by the football team you support
Hashtags.org is a website which allows you to search for hashtags and find the trending ones. It also lists a number of topics and their related hashtags.
Related links
Useful hashtags for writers and authors
How to find the best Twitter Hashtags – this in depth article has everything you need to know from how to find associated hashtags to using a Twitter trend generator map.
How to use Twitter for customer service - a really informative article from Mashable.
30 days to ‘try something new’
It is nearly half-way through the year and by now we all hope to have achieved something; whether it is big or small. It could be a set of qualifications, it could be learning to swim or it could simply be to better yourself in your current job.
Now is the perfect time for self-reflection. Think about what you could change in your day to day routine to improve yourself, this could be mentally or physically. Once you have this goal or target maintain it for 30 days. (Don’t worry this isn’t going into a self-help guide). Only recently I stumbled across this video, by Matt Cutts, and it was the perfect reminder to make sure you look at your life, routine etc. and re-examine it.
This video inspired me and I am definitely driving forward with the next month ahead. “The next 30 days will pass whether you like it or not.” This phrase definitely resonated with me. What change(s) will you make for the next 30 days?
SEO vs. SEM
Acronyms can often just get too much, whether they are being used constantly in the office workplace or on your mobile phone (the dreaded ‘lol’). Communication is about sending messages clearly and concisely so this article will define the difference between two different techniques. In the red corner SEO (search engine optimisation) stands defiant and is not disappearing anytime soon, in the blue corner lurks SEM (search engine marketing) hoping to win the fight, with money on the mind.
SEO is optimising your website to get free traffic and overcome any technical barriers that might prevent a search engine from accessing a website’s content. The site’s content should be relevant and in turn this helps the search engine index the content effectively. An optimised website is more easily understood by search engine crawlers (more chance of ranking higher in SERPS- search engine results page). On-page tactics include, but are not limited to: meta descriptions and tags, page titles, keywords, alt image tags, headings and URL.
SEM is simply the purchasing of marketing media such as Google AdWords (paid search advertising). SEM is very controllable and you are in complete control of budget and spend. You can choose a particular word or phrase to encourage traffic to your website. Over time ad campaigns can be monitored (analytics) and changes made if necessary.
There are similarities between the two approaches but you may find, depending on your needs, you put more time and energy into one over the other. However it is important to follow SMART (specific, measurable, attainable/achievable, relevant and time). There are many definitions for this wonderful acronym but they all mean the same thing; know what your aims are to achieve your end-goal.
Online tips/advice
- Off-site SEO such as acquiring links (recommendations or guest blogs) can both benefit/harm your website’s rank. Make sure the incoming link is from a reliable, authoritative source. However link building is considered an almost outdated technique now.
- What is a sitemap? The online pages of a website accessible by search engine crawlers or users.
- Good writing conquers all!
