One of the questions I get asked most often from those not comfortable with social networks such as Twitter is about the hashtags (#) and at mentions (@).

Admittedly, these can be a bit confusing if you’re not sure what you’re looking at so I wanted to try and explain a bit.

The at symbol @

This is how you know who you’re talking to. For example, if someone sent a tweet:

“That KTCdigital really knows what they’re talking about when it comes to Twitter” this would go out to the world to see on the sender’s Twitter timeline. However, the only way we (at KTC Digital) would see it is if we looked at the timeline. We wouldn’t get “notified”.

However, if the user said, “That @KTCdigital really knows what they’re talking about when it comes to Twitter” we would get notified that we got “mentioned”. Essentially, the @ is a way of addressing your tweet at a certain person.

The hashtag #

Think about this as a “subject” for your tweet.

“That @KTCdigital really knows what they’re talking about when it comes to Twitter #twitter #socialmedia #social” I’ve added the “hashtags” of “twitter”, “socialmedia” and “social”. Twitter users can then search to see other tweets/conversations that have the same hashtag / subject.

NOTE: if you’re using a multi-word hashtag such as #socialmedia there are NO SPACES in the tag.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/socialmedia

Incidentally, hashtags have now made their way to Facebook, Instagram, etc.

https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/socialmedia

So there you have it… a very brief intro to hashtags and the at mention on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.  Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @KTCDigital and like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/KTCDigital