Everybody Writes, 2nd Edition



84Writing with Hashtags

Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon mocked the ridiculous overuse of hashtags in a hilarious sketch on Fallon's late-night show.

Their “Twitter Conversation in Real Life” was littered with the excessive verbal hashtagging (my favorite: #el-oh-el-oh-el-oh-el-oh-el-oh-oh-el-oh-el-oh-el-oh-el-oh-el-oh-el-oh-eh-oh-el-oh ... which goes on and on and on for a spoken mile.¹

The sketch skewers what happens when companies—and all of us!—get a little too carried away with tacking a hashtag onto every social media utterance.

But you know what? Hashtags don't have to be gratuitous and silly. And while they've Fallon out of fashion (LOL) in recent years (more on that below), hashtags can serve a purpose. Tell your story. Share your history. Align you with an audience. Show your character.

It all depends on how strategically we use them.

On social media, the pound symbol (or hash) turns any word (or group of words) that directly follows it into a searchable link or keyword. A hashtag becomes a handy shortcut: a way for people to categorize, find, and rally around topics and conversations.

So it you want to wish the latest Batman a happy birthday on Twitter, you could wish #RobertPattison a #HB.

Hashtags began as a feature in 1988 on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels, a precursor to instant messaging and chat rooms. IRC users discovered channels by searching a hashtag with a topic or keyword—as in #CavalierKingCharlesEnthusiasts.

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