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Do Twitter hashtags attract readers, or push them away?
March 28, 2013
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Twitter users add “hashtags” to their messages thinking they’ll join a stream on the same topic and therefore find a wider audience. But it’s unlikely that using hashtags achieves those results, especially for the most popular topics, says the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University.
According to Twitter, the hashtag “#SuperBowl” was used 3 million times over about five hours on Super Bowl Sunday this year, an average of 167 tweets per second. At that rate, users had 1/17 of a second to find any given tweet, which Nieman likens to a single drop of water screaming for attention as it rushes over Niagara Falls. Even worse for Twitter users hoping to gain a larger audience, the default view for search results shows “Top” tweets, based on a formula that favors messages and users that have already gained a following.
Hashtags can be useful for gathering messages from small groups of people — at a conference, for example. But in most cases they’re ineffective, and with their jarring blue characters, aesthetically damaging. A tweet that’s free of hashtags is more pleasing to the eye, more easily consumed, and thus more likely to be re-tweeted. For every person who stumbles upon a tweet via hashtag, many more are likely to be put off by hashtag overuse. — Greg Beaubien
Comments
David Chamberlain says:
It takes a special mastery of twitter to get results from a hashtag.They are only ineffective if you don't get any retweets, you can ask your friends to retweet you and the more retweets you get then the higher you will appear in the top results for that hashtag. Also the right tweet at the right time can get you a lot of retweets, that split second you have in front of an audience can become viral.
James Brooks, APR+M says:
I was at an event where a large screen was posted and the tweets of attendees could be seen when #eventname was used. Naturally, people were tweeting about the event more so to see their tweet on the big screen than anything else. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the number of followers who were learning about the event because of this tactic. I thought it was an excellent way to get people to raise awareness of the event.
Tim says:
I have to point out that the Nieman Lab article is lacking any factual evidence for the claim that hashtags are somehow harmful. In fact, many studies show otherwise. A recent study from Poytner (http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/189021/twitter-study-hashtags-and-urls-can-double-engagement/) found that hashtags actually double your retweets. I think that you have to use hashtags wisely, but to say you'll get fewer retweets simply because they "aren't aesthetically pleasing" is not sound advice. Read the comments on that post and you'll hear the same sentiment.
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