The Everyday Blogger

In Easy Speak: What Does the # Hashtag Symbol Mean on Twitter?

One of the most frequently asked questions about a tweet is, "What does this # symbol (aka the hashtag) in front of a word mean like #cupcakes or #BSG?"

The geeky explanation is, "Hashtags in Twitter are a community-driven convention for adding metadata to your tweets. They were originally developed to create groups on Twitter for tracking a topic." {source Read Write Web}

Ok, where's the No Sweat explanation

Not to worry. I too like you can get that deer in headlights look at the sight of words like "metadata." Metaphorically, I like to describe the hashtag # in front of a descriptive word as a way to help to organize and find tweets on specific topics much like how file folders and sticky notes in book pages work.

Because I'm a visual creature, here I have illustrated basically how the hashtag works conceptually on Twitter...

3 Ways to Make Your Tweets Easier For Others To Retweet

One of the best ways to increase your odds of getting your tweets retweeted is to make those tweets easy for others to retweet.

Quite often, original tweets have to be manipulated in order to make them retweetable. Here's 3 ways to make your tweets easier for others to retweet:

1. When composing your tweet, remember that your retweet sig will be added onto the front end when someone retweets your tweet. This means that the original tweet you write will actually be less than 140 characters as you factor in your retweet sig. The "retweet sig(nature)" consists of the letters RT, a space, your @name, and a space before the first word of the tweet.

Here is an example of a tweet written by @SusanCosmos that I really liked and wanted to retweet.

I retweeted or RT (to use Twitter abbreviated lingo) Susan's tweet and here's what the retweet looks like...

Adding a "Retweet This" Button to Your Blog

Now that Twitter is proving itself to be a hotbed of traffic for bloggers, getting a post retweeted is a big score in terms of getting viral exposure for your blog.

Many bloggers, yours truly included, are using the Tweetmeme "Retweet this" button on their blogs to make it super easy for their readers to retweet a post. Tweetmeme offers two visual choices of buttons:

 

Here is where you get the Tweetmeme code for each button option.

Blogger and Wordpress

If you use the Blogger or Wordpress platforms for blogging, here's further explanation on how to integrate the Tweetmeme "Retweet This" button into your template:

• Integrating the button into a Wordpress template
• Using the Wordpress Plugin
• Integrating the button into Blogger

TypePad and other blog platforms

If you use TypePad or any other blog platform that Tweetmeme does not currently have integration options for, or you use Blogger and Wordpress but get deer in headlights when thinking about integrating anything into a template, you can simply cut & paste, the "Retweet this" code for the button style you like into each post.

For example, I use TypePad for Everyday Tweet. I go into the "Edit HTML" tab of my post, and insert the Tweetmeme code at the very bottom of the post. Yes, for now, I have to cut & paste for every post. Hopefully soon, Tweetmeme will have an integration option for TypePad.

Make your blog title retweet friendly

Now that getting retweeted is a factor in your blogging efforts, it's even more impotant to create a blog title for each post that is retweet friendly. In this post: "3 Ways To Make Tweets Easier For Others To Retweet" #3 is specifically about writing blog titles for use with the Tweetmeme button.

What is a Retweet and How Do I Retweet?

A Retweet in Twitter is when you see a tweet you like written by someone else, and you want to share that tweet with your Followers.

For example, I saw this tweet from @Foodimentary about a marinara sauce factoid that I thought my audience would enjoy, and here's how I retweeted Foodimentary's tweet:

1. Highlight and copy the Foodimentary tweet
2. Hit the Reply arrow on the side of the box

When you hit the reply button, your Twitter stream will open up straight to your home box along with Foodimentary's name with the @ symbol attached.

What the @ symbol does is let Foodimentary see in their @replies box that you did a retweet of their tweet. This is nice because people like to see where there stuff has been mentioned. Helps you build goodwill with others.

3. Paste the Foodimentary tweet

4. Add the letters RT which stand for Retweet in front of the @name. It is important to add the letters RT because it gives credit to the original source of the tweet, and communicates to your audience, "Hey guys, here's something cool I saw and wanted to share." It also tells Twitter that your tweet is Retweet and not a continuation of a conversation.

It is also important to make sure there is a space between the letters RT and the @Foodimentary name. If the RT and @ are butted up next to each other, the @Foodimentary name cannot become a live link again to let Foodimentary that you retweeted them.

 

5. Hit the Update button, and now the Retweet will show up in your Twitter stream, and in Foodimentary's @replies stream.

A common faux pas newbies make is simply copying someone else's tweet, going back to their home page, pasting the tweet in their home box, and then hitting the update button with no addition of the RT or the person's @Twitter name.

This makes the tweet appear like you are the original source/creator of the tweet which is not the case. It appears that you are plagiarizing someone else's tweet which is not a way to build goodwill.

It's always a good rule of thumb to be generous with praise and to give credit to other people's work again helping you build goodwill with others and in the Twitter community as a whole.

What is a Tweet and What Does it Mean?

I find it amusing how the meaning of a word can change over time and in context when something new and hot comes along. Remember when a post was a piece of lumber in the ground? Now it's a noun/verb referring to an article or something you do on a blog or social site.

The word tweet was more commonly referred to a chirping bird sound, but now, tweet is also a noun/verb depending on context in reference to a 140 character text you create on Twitter, a service which I affectionately describe as a Swiss army knife of texting awesomeness. Here's why I describe Twitter that way.

Here's examples of the word tweet in use:

• Tweet as a noun: "Did you see that tweet from Demi Moore (aka @mrskutcher) about the celebrity she's be most excited about meeting?"

• Tweet as a verb: "That is hilarious! I will tweet about the dog chewing mom's snuggie."

What is Twitter and Why Can't People Stop Talking About It?

With the media all a flutter about Twitter, you'd think someone just invented the newest Krispy Kreme craze. When you got mainstream types like Stephen Colbert and Barbara Walters chirping about this latest social networking thing, well, it's easy to see how the gab fest is going Main street.

In geek speak, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. You can use Twitter on the computer, cell phone, or mobile device. Twitter has also been referred to as the "SMS of the Internet" because the platform is based on text messaging technology.

With that explanation, you're probably falling asleep or scratching your head thinking to yourself, "Uh, so what?" Yeah, I get it.

So, this is how I describe Twitter: Twitter is a Swiss army knife of texting awesomeness. Here's what you get: