If you’re a social media novice, hashtags may seem confusing and/or unnecessary. But they really are turning into an integral way we communicate online, so it’s important to understand them and know how to use them.

What a hashtag basically does is label content, connecting it with other content containing the same hashtag. It allows other people who are interested in your topic to quickly find information about that topic on the internet.

A hashtag looks something like this:  #UncorkedArtist or #HashtagBrag.

You can make any word (or string of words) a hashtag just by adding the pound sign (#) in front of it.

There aren’t many rules for hashtagging . . .
– must begin with #
– can not contain any spaces
– you can use numbers, but no punctuation marks, so commas, periods, exclamation points, question marks and apostrophes won’t work
– asterisks, ampersands or any other special characters won’t work either

Other than that, you’re free to create and/or use any hashtag you like!

We like to capitalize the first letter of each word of a hashtag because we think it’s #VisuallyEasierToRecognize this way. But you don’t have to use capital letters if you don’t want to, uppercase letters will not alter your search results, so searching for #UncorkedArtist will yield the same results as #uncorkedartist.

When you are posting, keep in mind that the @ symbol does something completely different. Using @ before a person’s username will notify him directly that you’ve written about them. A hashtag will not do this.

Hashtags originated on Twitter but now are being used on just about every social media platform: InstagramFacebookPinterest and Google+ and of course, Twitter. So any time you post something to a social media site, say for instance Facebook, you can add the number sign (#) and create your very own hashtag. Then if you search for that hashtag on Facebook, your post along with other posts containing that hashtag will show up.

 

Now that you understand all about hashtags . . . it’s time to start using them!!

We frequently select random winners of a FREE Gift Certificate by searching social media sites for our 2 hashtags . . . #HashtagBrag #UncorkedArtist

All you have to do to enter this FREE Gift Certificate give-away is:

Then be sure to Sign up for our Email Club to receive notification of winners (plus events, special deals, etc.)

 

There are LOTS of ways to win FREE gift certificates at The Uncorked Artist!

 

As always, Thank you for choosing The Uncorked Artist.

We hope to see you at the studios soon!

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