#Take #It #Easy #On #The #Hastags

I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s important to hashtag your Twitter posts, when appropriate. Unfortunately, many people tend to go crazy with it, and their posts look like cluttered messes.

Just take a look at the post below from the Ohio State Buckeyes feed.  There are five hashtags.  FIIIIIIIVVVVE.  That’s way too many!

I wish I had research at my fingertips to back this up, but I don’t know the real impact of multiple hashtags on the retweetability of posts.  This is a personal preference, but anecdotally, I believe the followings I cultivate agrees. When you litter your Twitter posts with too many hashtags, it makes your tweet difficult to read.  Instead of flowing like a sentence, it reads something like this:

The. OhioState. Buckeyes. Punch their ticket for. NewOrleans! MarchMadness. FinalFour. Go Bucks!

It becomes an annoying speed bump to your followers, and using them too often can lead to a loss in followers.  Instead, follow these best practices for hashtag use:

Primarily use them at the end of tweets


This post above is a great example of appropriate hashtag use.  Their tweet is simple and clean, and the #MarchMadness hashtag ensures that it will be included in the tournament discussion.

Use the hashtag with the most impact

Refer, again, to the tweet above.  Notice how they avoided hashtagging the “Final Four” phrase and chose to use #MarchMadness instead.  This was a wise choice because most college basketball fans searching tweets are going to look up that phrase as opposed to “Final Four”, which wasn’t taking place when this was posted.  When the Final Four games are being played and that tag becomes more popular, your tweet will be so aged that no one will see it.

Keep these suggestions in mind, and avoided cluttering your posts to the point that no one wants to read them.