Or better known as #whatisahashtag?

Hashtags are words or phrases prefixed with a # that allow users to group, track, find and / or participate in conversations, primarily on the social networking sites Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google + others. While you will see them in Facebook status updates, they really do nothing on that site except perhaps for Facebook users to develop their own syntax or humor.

Finding or following conversations from or involving celebrities, musicians, movie titles, sporting events, politics, TV shows, etc. are all popular forms of hashtags.

Some of the most popular hastags from 2012 are: #Obama2012, #xfactor, #fashion, #economy, #ipadapps, #globalwarming. You get the point.

The origins of hashtags were actually when Twitter users were looking to solve the problem of how they were going to track their conversations. Twitter caught wind of this and incorporated using a feature that made these hashtags into usable links. These hashtag links make your social media marketing even more powerful than ever before.

If you are looking to direct conversations around an event or topic related to your brand, product, or service, hashtags can be very beneficial!

Hashtags are one of the most important and efficient ways of organizing information. For example, if you are tweeting about reading this blog, you could compose a tweet or a post that says “Reading #e-MergeOnlineMarketing and learning about #hashtags.” Then, anyone searching for #e-MergeOnlineMarketing or #hashtags would see your tweet or post.