Twitter is an amazing social media tool that offers users the chance to share information with people all around the world in a second.

It is different from Facebook in many ways, but the most obvious one is the length of messages. Twitter messages [known as tweets] have a 140 character limit. A tweet is a 20th century version of a newspaper headline.  Sharing quick messages to the entire universe is a power tool that is available to you for free!

A hashtag is the # symbol and is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. People use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) in their tweet to categorize those tweets and help them show more easily in Twitter Search. Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other tweets marked with that keyword. Hashtags can occur anywhere in the tweet – at the beginning, middle, or end.

If the hashtagged words become very popular, they are called Trending Topics. These topics are seen on the left sidebar of the Twitter page.

Any tweet with the hashtag is grouped together in a separate stream. That way, you can look at all of the tweets in the world with this hashtag. This is how current events are spread so quickly. For example, the earthquake in Japan was tweeted about so much that the hashtag was a trending topic worldwide. People knew what happened minutes after the earthquake because of Twitter. Read more here. 

You may be asking yourself, how can companies use hashtags for their business? Why should I use it? This is a typical question for many people — you are not alone!

The way Jackrabbit [@JackrabbitTech] uses hashtags may help you understand and be able to think of ways to use it for your business.

We use the hashtag #JRuserconf for our two User Conferences each year. This hashtag will be used at each of the conferences and share information regarding the event. It is a great way for attendees and non-attendees to know what is going on.  As you may know, our bunnies attend conferences all over the country each year. We will be tweeting from these events at #JRevents to connect with those of you attending and those of you at home.

#JRtips is a new hashtag we are using to share any new tips and tricks with our software users. These tips can help you use the software, save time, and see what other people may be struggling with. During our weekly webinars, we will be live-tweeting with this hashtag to share what is being talked about. If you cannot attend the webinar, these tweets will be available to you 24/7. And the best part? You don’t even have to be a Twitter user. Everybody can see these tweets right here!

Interact with Jackrabbit employees and other software users with these hashtags. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see. Twitter is all about the conversation, so jump in!