There are many features available when using Twitter.

From the retweet to Lists, they are fun and provide additional levels of functionality.  The more of them  you use regularly, the more powerful Twitter will be for you.

The Hashtag (#) is one of these features and lately you’ve been seeing it more often than not.

The Hashtag is similar to a subject line in an email, or keyword tags in a blog post.  The words you “tag” are the very essence of your tweet.

To understand this crazy symbol’s involvement in Twitter, you must first be aware of Twitter Search.

It Starts with Twitter Search

On the web interface there is a search box on the right column.  You can search for anything you’d like, and if it’s been mentioned in any tweet recently, it will be shown to you in the search results.  Nothing special has to be done to your own tweets, they are publicly search-able by default.  Cool huh?

But wait! Your results won’t always be what you expect them to be.

If you typed in “wave” into the search box looking for information about Google Wave- and I just did. These are some of the results:

Jakafe @St_agustaf Yo… Wave yo hands in da air like you just don’t care… Hooo.. Heeeyy.. Hooo…

zckenny just requested my Google Wave Invite! Get yours at http://www.google.com-wave.info – #googlewave #googlewaveinvite

strellson 說 大家晚安 (wave) (sleeping) http://plurk.com/p/2pjspa

And the list goes on with several more pages.

There were successful results about Google Wave, but they were mixed in with other uses of the word “wave.”  Could you have used the search phrase “Google Wave”? Yes! Of course, and we’ll get to the difference between using/not using a hash later on.

Try that same search with the search phrase #wave and you get a much cleaner result- most if not all are related to Google Wave.  Why is this?  One important thing to remember is that:

The # is not automatic, it’s another person’s implicit identification of the subject of their Tweet.

This implicit, going out-of-their-way notation of the core of their tweet makes the hashtag a very good way of finding other people’s tweets related to a subject.  Compare the two:

I got my Google Wave invite today!

I got my Google Wave invite today! #wave #GoogleWave

This example is a little simple, but the idea is the same.  Hashtags are deliberate. The Tweeter (person who Tweets) is actively thinking about other people who might be searching for the same topic.

The next level…

Okay so we take it to the next level now.  Why waste all that valuable space? Perhaps you need it for your really cool quote?  You can use the hashtag inside your actual message.  Here’s our previous example kicked up a notch:

I got my #GoogleWave invite today! SWEET!

That is a finely tuned tweet right there.  Gets the message across and tags it for others.

Tweets: 140 Characters is Too Short to Not Have Fun

You can also have fun with your hashtag usage!  And even use it to get a second point across.  Here are some actual tweets found by searching #fail.

pingu_98 left power supply for my laptop at work. #fail.

And here’s a great one! (Link goes to image shown below.)

debcha Propped-door #fail: http://yfrog.com/37p44j

So Debcha’s tweet talks about MIT wanting to conserve energy- even use TWO signs, all while propping open the door.  Notice how the use of #fail worked perfectly for a search.  Just typing in “fail” would have resulted in tweets simply containing the word.

The possibilities are endless!

Events!

For me, the most fun use of the hashtag in tweeting is at large scale events and conferences.  If the Event Management or Corporate Sponsor of the even is up on the their social media, they’ll tell you what hashtag to use while you’re there.

For example, I recently attended a B2B conference and the host, SilverPop let the attendees know prior to and during the even that the hashtag to use when tweeting about the conference was: #b2buniversity

On my Twitter iPhone app Echofon, there is a place to search and I typed in #b2buniversity on my way to the event.  The fun starts here as you’ll see lots of other people tweeting about making their way TO the event:

On my way to #b2buniversity! Looking forward to it!

And when at the event, people will often tweet key points and metrics:

@KeynoteSpeaker : 28% of all elephants are color-blind #b2buniversity

So for someone not at the event, all you have to do is set your Twitter Search to the hashtag and you can follow along with updates and often pictures of the event!

#Hashtag

The Online World, Twitter, and the way we tweet/search is constantly evolving.  Understanding and using hashtags will help keep you at the forefront of the #knowledgecurve.  So get out there and use those #hastags like a #hero!

Twitter recently added a feature to allow you to forward your tweets to everyone who follows you. The action is called a ReTweet.

If you’re already up on both skis, you’ll find the Twitter announcement as new & exciting as a PBS special on Covered Bridges.  “Why?” you say.  One simple reason:

The ReTweet is not new.

That’s right.  We’ve been retweeting for as long as we’ve been tweeting on Twitter.  The new part is that the Twitter interface on the web at Twitter.com (finally) has a little button that allows you to retweet and spot the retweets of others.  It’s less about innovation and more about recognizing the retweet as an integral part of the Twitter experience.

How the West was Won (or How we ReTweeted Back in the Early Days)

If someone you follow had a simply remarkable Tweet (for who knows what reason!) and you wanted to share this tweet with the people that follow you- you would copy and paste the tweet into your own New Tweet text box and put “RT” in the front of the message.  Here’s an example:

I received:

@SmartGuy32 : New study says Elephants can fly! Full report here: http://www.mit.edu/bleh

I sent:

RT @SmartGuy32 : New study says Elephants can fly! Full report here: http://www.mit.edu/bleh

Brilliant isn’t it?!  You can quickly pass information and give credit to the original tweet.  Brilliant! Pass me a Guiness!

The RT (Yes ReTweet. You know it now so we’ll use savvy lingo!) is arguably one of the best parts of Twitter.  Plus people get a kick out of seeing their own tweet being retweeted.

Twhirl Me Around

You can tweet from Twitter.com.  Those that Waterski the Web use a program to keep above the water on Twitter.  I use Twhirl and it’s great!  We’ll have another post talking about the variety of programs out there.  Twhirl, and programs like it, built in a button to allow you to retweet and they did it a “long time ago” (really, ages ago in Internet speed).

So you can see now why those of us using powerful software like Twhirl to read, send and retweet give a little chuckle when Twitter finally catches up to us.

Extend my Network, already!

Didn’t the title talk about extending my network? If you’re looking to grow the size of who follows you then you’ll want to check out this post.  If you still want more, and I would- not to worry, there will be more about growing your numbers (in the right way).

In addition to (re)introducing the (re)tweet, the point of this post is to point out how retweets extend the effective range of your own network.  It does this in a pure and simple, spam free way:

Important and interesting information travels.

You might only have 15 followers, but if you tweet something really interesting (to those that follow you), you’ll often see your tweet being retweeted.  And it doesn’t necessarily stop there.  Their followers might also find it interesting and the number of RTs has no bounds.  In this way, content is king.  On Twitter, its often much more about what is said than who said it.  A boring RT from Ashton Kutcher won’t get nearly as far as a link to a new, rabidly insightful blog post.

So if you’re new to the retweet, welcome!  Get out there and be a part of an awesome human network!

Twitter recently released Lists,
allowing you to organize the people you follow into groups.

It’s something I’ve dabbled with on my own twitter account:

After attending a B2B event and following many of the participants- it seemed a natural course to put them all in a B2B list. It was easy enough to create the new list by clicking “New List” in the right column of the main page in Twitter.  Then I went to the page of the people I was following (http://twitter.com/following) and added each of the B2B folks to my new list.  To add the person I click on the first of the two option buttons next to each of the people I was following.

The result is a list of savvy B2B professionals: http://twitter.com/CaseyChesh/b2b

Yeah! Hooray! Yehaw! Huzzah.

Lists work great, they’re fine and dandy.

The real topic of this post is not the Lists themselves, but the effect they may have on the way people use Twitter.

Out there in the Twitter universe you’ll find people with 2 follows and others with over 50,000.  Top followed accounts will be in the millions!  Then general rule with a lot of people- even people I admire and respect, is that Quantity is the name of the game with Twitter.  In order to get many followers, they follow thousands!  It’s also generally accepted (for non-celebrities) to follow back anyone who follows you (as long as they’re not just SPAM).

More is Less

I'll trade you 100 pennies for your one $5 bill.

The problem with quantity is that the more people you follow, the less you’re following each person. If you follow 3 people, when they Tweet, you’ll be sure to see what they have to say if you check your Twitter account regularly.  Follow 30 people, and now you’re cooking.  You should have several tweets every few hours.

At the time of this post I follow 210 people.  Prior to the B2B conference it was under 200 and even with that

Can you keep up with the Matrix?

many people, I was largely overwhelmed.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to read every Tweet.  This poses the challenge.  How much value do you place on individuals that you follow?  No doubt some are more important than others.

There are several people that I follow who don’t tweet too often, but when they do it’s usually important and something I definitely want to read.  As the number of people I follow goes up, the chance of me missing an important tweet also increases.  With 200+ people tweeting, I’m left with a Stream of Information.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if that’s what you’re looking for.

It wasn’t what I was looking for, so for a long time I have culled (cool word) back the people I follow.

There are 3 things that have caused me to recently shift my view of the best practice for following:

• Twitter’s introduction of Lists
• Many colleagues and peers with large numbers of followers/follows.
• My adoption of Google Reader for reading RSS Feeds.

The use of Google Reader is critical.  It has become my Knowledge Tool, replacing what Twitter use to be.  And with my need for news/learning satisfied (you can say that again!), ensuring that I see the most important tweets from certain people is no longer as important.  RSS Feeds / Google Reader have allowed me to view Twitter more as a broadcasting tool.

Tweets <———–>Tweets is now replaced by Tweets ————–> Tweets

While this is potentially a good thing for me in terms of personal branding, I’m not sure it’s such a good thing for Twitter.  Which brings us back around to their introduction to Lists.  Lists will allow us to continue to add to our Follow numbers with the illusion that we’ll be able to keep up. (Many pros don’t keep up and use it as a broadcasting tool, others will hire people to manage it.)

I wonder if Twitter could be saved by limiting the number of people you can follow.

A controversial point!  We’ll save that one for another post.

In conclusion, the number of Tweet broadcasters increase and Twitter has a fundamental need for Tweet consumers. I look forward to seeing how the service evolves!

Have you signed up for Twitter? You should.  Twitter is more than a fad and should be in your online Toolkit.

Sharing on Twitter is a different culture, and a change in the way we typically operate on the Internet.  Hiding your tweets (messages) goes against the very purpose of Twitter.

The best way to illustrate this point is to compare Twitter to Facebook.  With recent changes to Facebook’s layout and functionality it’s got a very Twitter-like feel to it.  For this article we’ll put aside Facebook’s strategic moves toward Twitter and focus on how they were both first intended.

Facebook is private. Your photos, your status, and your profile itself is private by default.  The only people that can read what you right in your personal space are those that you have specifically given the privilege to.  Facebook calls this ‘friending’ because you officially confirm someone as a Friend.  You can give varying levels of permission to different levels of friends, but the idea of privacy among your circle of friends keeps it a closed environment.  This naturally serves a great purpose, you can share parts of your life with your parents, old roomate from college, and your friends without having to worry if someone is reading what they shouldn’t.

Twitter is not private. Calling it private/not private seems to put a negative connotation on Twitter.  You could also think of it as open and closed.  Twitter is designed to be open.  While Facebook has other bells and wistles, the concept of Twitter revolves around you tweeting what you’re doing/reading/thinking/learning/etc.  If everyone was private, it wouldn’t work- it’d be the equivalent of Facebook’s status updates.  The difference with Twitter is the idea of Following people you want to- whether you know them personally or not.  From political figures to game changing CEOs, you are able to follow them, learn from them.  Additionally, if you want to follow (keep up with) a celebrity from Hollywood (oh boy!), you’re certainly welcome.

One of the biggest reasons people stop using Twitter is because no one is following them. This could be for a variety of reasons, and I discuss the best way to use Twitter in another post.  But if you’ve set your Privacy on Twitter to block everyone, you’ve basically decided to make Twitter a one way street.  And you’re welcome to do that as long as you keep in mind that it’s one of the reasons people drop off the Twittersphere.

But people can read my thoughts and whatever I type!  Yes they can!  So don’t type anything you wouldn’t say to a room full of people using a microphone!

Twitter is a great tool and for many people an equally great mystery.

I hear about it every day.  You signed up, added someone they suggested, maybe looked for your friends, maybe tweeted once, and then… yeah that’s about it.

There are many varieties but the same bottom line: What’s the point of Twitter?

The point is sharing. Just like Raffi encourages kids to share PB&J sandwhiches, Twitter encourages, facilitates and is nothing but sharing within the confines of 140 characters.

Sharing what? Yes you can share what you’re eating, where you’re eating, but you can also share an important news or blog article you read, a lesson you just learned the hard way, and many other informative messages.

I like to use Twitter with the following composition:

• 50% personal
• 50% professional

Do I count every Tweet and ensure exact ratio? Heck no.  But this setup is present in the back of my mind and helps me best make use of Twitter.

Why personal? Simple.  Because strictly business may work for Stock Tickers, but it’s not really all that much

Charlie on his first day with us!

fun for YOU.  Showing people the person behind the @ name is interesting to those that follow you, and fun to share.  Once I took my new puppy (Charlie) to the dark park at night.  I tweeted a thought I had while standing there in the coolness of the night: “@CaseyChesh – Risk Taking: Visiting a dark park at night.”  The realization that I could be stepping on a poopy land mine at any moment was just too much not to share.  And for those following me, the thought of me tip toeing around that mulch filled play-pen probably painted a disastrously humorous picture.

Why professional? This is important.  Whatever your interest is in, you should tweet about it.  And I mean ‘interest’ in the most broad of ways.  From your career & industry to your passion for model railroads.  I will often tweet blog articles related to the online marketing industry, website analytics, or even scientific breakthroughs.  This gives people that aren’t your immediate buddies or family a reason to follow you.  If you’re looking for a job, an employer will see your Twitter account (if they look, and increasingly they are- i know i am).  If you heed my advice, they will see a well rounded person tweeting both personable and professional information- which is a long winded way of saying two thumbs up for you!

Why both? Could you stick to one, sure.  In my experience, I’ve found that both are needed.  There are several reasons why too!  Unless you’re Wil Wheaton and grew up on the Starship Enterprise, there aren’t going to be too many people who will follow you if you only talk about what you had for dinner and your latest bug bite.  Having the occasional value in your tweets is a great thing!  It could be as simple as passing on a link to a funny video you saw.  In the Twitter world, we call that Re-Tweeting and the shorthand for it is “RT.”

When you have the proper mix in your Twitter usage, people with similar passions will be more inclined to follow you.

You can then follow them back.  This weaves an amazing web of individuals who all have common interests, goals, and more.

It’s also these professional tid-bits that will attract you to following other people.  This

is where the true power of Twitter enters the scene.  Suddenly you’re in your own mini-network and one of the first to hear about important news in your industry or hobby.  For me, I care about what Google is up to.  Not only the polished products, but what is in development.  By following the right kind of people (who have the same type of 50/50 mixture) I will always be “in-the-loop” on Google’s latest experiments.