Tags on Twitter or more popularly known as hashtags or simply #tags are a way of cataloging tweets on Twitter. Just like the wild wild [www] web Twitter too is a micro www in its own where the rate of flow of information is so immense that one can easily freak out. The intelligent users created hashtags and then Twitter incorporated them in its interface making it more useful for users to find the tweets of their interest at the click of a button [or tap of a finger if you use a notebook computer  ]

Now that we have billions of tweets and millions of hashtags how do we make the most of it. [ as if it’s a matter of life and death. BTW Who cares? ]

First things First!

What does this hashtag stand for? It can be as difficult for Twitter veterans as it is for a newbie to make out what the hashtag stands for from the tag itself. While people are still busy finding the most efficient way to do it use the following to make your way through.

Tagalus: Tagalus is a simple dictionary for hashtags. It’s very easy to find information on thousands of hashtags as defined by other users.

Twubs: Uses a wiki system to help disseminate information on a hashtag. It aggregates tweets and imports pictures to help illuminate the topics being discussed.

Hashtags.org: While not the best at helping you understand the meaning behind a tag, Hashtags.org is good at showing you its use over time and recent tweets, which oftentimes is enough to figure out the meaning behind the tag.

What the Trend?: This useful little service makes it really easy to learn about trending hashtags. When something starts trending.

Tracking the Twitter world via the hashtags.

If you are a journalist, marketing pro or just an individual and like to track the topics of your interest, you can do so via the hashtags. Monitter and Twitterfall are good choices recommended by Mashable to do so.

If you need to track a less popular Twitter hashtag, try setting up a Twilert to get a daily email of the use of a specific hashtag.

Is it really that simple to understand and use?

Yes it is unless some of the unwritten rules are followed. Twitter hashtags are just like Google’s meta keywords [ if you don’t find youself on the same page with us we recommend reading through this article.]

Use them don’t abuse them. If you make every word of your tweet a hashtag then firstly It doesn’t look neat and secondly it doesn’t make sense. It’s just like copying pasting the whole webpage in the keywords field.

Give your hashtag context. Most people won’t actually know what your hashtag means, so give a quick explanation in one of your tweets or, if you’re making a hashtag, make it very apparent what it’s talking about. Be specific and use specific tags instead of generalized words.

I guess that would be end of the gyan from us. We would like to know from you all how you have used hashtags to make the most out of your tweets. Do leave a comment.