Entry #7 | Hashtag What?

Hello again! So another curious item that I have been contemplating as a result of a conversation with some friends this past holiday, the hashtag. I have one friend that likes to hashtag-it-up in conversation and posts on social media. This got me to thinking about it since I don't use hashtags in my minimal use of social media. Is this just a way to add flair to a post or is there really a purpose to their use?

After performing a search on Google, I found a few interesting bits of information. From the Twitter homepage, clicking on the search icon and typing "trend" into the search field will result in a list of the current trending worldwide hashtags. It appears that you can actually type anything in the search field to get to the native site but using the search term trend seems a good way to start. There is a menu across the type of this page that defaults to the Top results for the search. Clicking on Latest will show the most current results. The results in these multiple selections will continue to update and clicking on the new results will expand these new entries so they can be viewed. The results today have been interesting to watch, from the Alabama football and basketball games to what appears to be a cooking show in Brazil and two items trending in what appeared to be Arabic.

Finding a live feed for hashtags on Facebook proved a little trickier since I was searching for something similar to Twitter. Typing a topic or hashtag in the search field at the top of the browser will provide the search results along with the current trending news. However, this is not a report for trending hashtags. It appears to be for actual news articles which are being accessed via Facebook by users. There is a Facebook Media page but this appears to be more targeted to different types of professionals and businesses looking to create content and/or organize a campaign on this platform.

This has been another interesting topic to learn more about this afternoon. The potential here appears significant for any business or professional with a purpose.  However, it does seem that all the random hashtags may be more noise than anything purposeful. Twitter seems to have more focus in the use of the hashtag which makes sense since this was the social media platform that started the use of the hashtag on such a scale. Watching the live feed is almost akin to people watching, which can provide some entertainment, when time permits. Until next time though, take care, everyone!