All posts tagged What the Hashtag?

A Hashtag is a Terrible Thing to Waste

by jaywalk1 on March 16, 2010 in PR, Public Relations, Resource, Resources with 2 Comments

Let’s set the scene.

You’re on twitter – reading, following, tweeting – the usual.

You see someone using a tag that you don’t recognize. Content is not clear either.

You don’t really know this person, so “hey @user…” is not the best choice.

You’re thinking: “What can I do? I know. I’ll search for it!”

Problem is the person never bothered to register their hashtag.

—

Don’t let your tweets or any chat that you host leave people wondering. Register your hashtags for free! There are many services out there, but the site I like to use is  called What the Hashtag?! Described as the “user-editable encyclopedia  for hashtags found on Twitter,” What the Hashtag?! is currently tracking  over 10,000 hashtags for over 3,000 users.For those who are active users,  you know that there are many more tags out there just waiting to be defined.

Know what hashtags are?

For a deeper dive on Twitter and Hashtag use, you can read this post, but for now, let’s stick with the general definition.

Hashtags.org defines them as “ a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to [your message].”

There aren’t any major rules when it comes to using hashtags. Simply throw in the “#” before the message and tweet away.

So why all the fuss? Why What the Hashtag?!

The beauty of What the Hashtag?! is its ability to provide an archive of chats through the transcript option. In these times when search.twitter.com only goes back about seven days, a chat transcript is an extremely useful option. To better explain what I mean, lets look at #smcedu.

#SMCEDU

Social Media Club Education Connection or #smcedu “unites educators/students/professionals to advance social media in higher education.” I first learned of this initiative through the DC Chapter of the Social Media Club #SMCDC and from there connected with the coordinator Yong Lee, but if I had not met Yong, if I just saw the #smcedu hashtag online, a simple search would have brought me to this page giving a rundown on all that is involved with social media education connection. That’s just one situation.

Let’s take to today as a real example. #SMCEDU chats are held on Twitter every Monday from 1230-130PM Eastern. Most Monday’s are free then, but lately, I’ve been jumping between meetings right at that time. That means that I’ve been missing the chat. Thanks to What the Hashtag?!, I have not missed very much. With just a few clicks, you can have a time-stamped transcript of your own.

Earth shattering offering: No. Extremely useful: #YES!

Remember to register your hashtags! Why? Because a hashtag is a terrible thing to waste!


National Visionary Leadership Project: An Evening with Chuck Brown

by jaywalk1 on October 11, 2009 in Events, Just Fun, Music, Thoughts with 1 Comment

It feels like it’s been a long time since my last post. While I was working, running around town, and basically doing everything but blogging, I thought back to the interview I did with Jun Loayza for Awesome Bloggers.

In that interview, I said that I would work on a few things in terms of this blog. One involved making a schedule…still need to get to that point, but I am making some progress on another front – integrating music (something I couldn’t live without!) into my posts.

Given the time that’s gone by, I felt like Bob Marley’s “Nice Time” would work.

“Long time we no have no nice time:
You-you doo-doo-doo, yeah: think about that!”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSFEhk1nWg]

As much I love listening to some old time reggae from him and the Wailers, Chuck_Browntoday’s post is about another great musician, the Godfather of Go-Go Chuck Brown. Before I came to DC, I had no clue what Go-Go was, but I think I was here for a sum total of 18hrs before I figured it out.

Over the last six years, I have come to love Go-Go not just because of its addictive rhythm but also because of the joy I see spread the minute anyone from the District hears it.

When I found out that Chuck was being honored by the National Visionary Leadership Project, I knew I had to attend.

Co-founded in 2001 by Camille O. Cosby, Ed.D. and Renee Poussaint, the National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP) “unites generations to create tomorrow’s leaders by recording, preserving, and distributing through various media, the wisdom of extraordinary African American elders – Visionaries – who have shaped American history.”

All of the photos, videos and podcasts featuring legends of our time are available on the NVLP website, and permanently archived at the Library of Congress with the goal of allowing students, scholars and the public to gain a new understanding of America’s past, the roles so many have played in shaping what it is today and the lessons to be learned from it.

I was lucky to attend the great event with PR mover and shaker Amanda Miller Littlejohn and we teamed up to live tweet the event. For a play by play and some interesting perspective, check out the #NVLP tweets.

I strongly encourage you to check out NVLP’s website, but in the meantime, I leave you with one of my favorites from Chucky B.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRHFmVv4R1M&feature=related]

The CBC Needs To Be More Social

by jaywalk1 on September 27, 2009 in Diversity, Resource, Resources, Social Media, Thoughts with 3 Comments

cbc_alc 09If you were out and about in the DC area over the past weekend, I would expect you to know that the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) just hosted their 2009 Annual Legislative Conference, but I wouldn’t expect you to know what happened there.

Why? I don’t think the CBC used social media as much as they could have to promote the conference, the people in attendance, the issues being discussed and the solutions created.

**Full disclosure – I was NOT in attendance at this year’s Annual Legislative Conference. Not because I was boycotting or anything of that nature. Just couldn’t make it. Before I go any further, I would like to say this:

Only a small group of people can attend conferences like these, but to create the change that needs to occur, many more people need to be informed and engaged. Social media can help achieve that goal.

Though I could not attend, I tried my best to catch up on what was discussed, but it was not particularly easy. Honestly, if I wanted to party, I would have had no problem gathering that info on Twitter, but for some reason, the pure content or true substance of the meeting was hard to find.

You have a problem when someone who is actively looking to connect can’t find you. It makes it harder to engage, and you open yourself to the risk of losing the interest of your audience in the process.

I did, however, come across video from some of the panels that took place this weekend. My favorite thus far is the Black Power Panel (relax, it’s way less militant than it sounds.). I like it because it happens to cover an area that I’m particularly interested in, the use of social media among people of color.

CBC logoIt’s a long video (1hr, 40mins), and if you’re not up for watching the whole thing, I would queue it up and then jump to 1:11:40. The panelist speaking touches on some key things related to how people in the communities of color and elected officials are missing out on opportunities because of how they *are* using social media today.

Okay, so I’ve pointed out the social media #FAIL. Now I’d like to give a quick list of my PR Prescriptions on how the CBC could have better utilized social media to connect with people to provide more real time coverage.

* Official Tweeters – There were probably over 100 (maybe 200) people at the conference on twitter using the #CBC hashtag. Some spoke about the panels and live-tweeted. Most, I found spoke about the celebs they saw and the parties they were planning to attend. Fun, but not the best in terms of substance.

Next year, the CBC really should have official designated tweeters operating their own handles sharing the meat of the conversation, utilizing tools like twitpic to share behind the scenes pictures and services like What the Hashtag? to claim, define and share those hashtags.

* Official Bloggers – The key for this is integration. The CBC already produces the ALC Daily, the conference newsletter. This information should definitely be leveraged online, and then, you take what you have and enhance it with tweets from the conference, pictures, video and everything else.

Official bloggers should be announced (promoted essentially), and they should be on the floor, in the panels and at the galas gathering content, creating content and providing more context on happenings in real (or close to real) time.

* Media Partnerships - I won’t try to prescribe how the CBC should play with media partners, but a few that they could partner with come to mind. Here they are:  The Grio, The Afro (I followed their tweets!),  The Root, AOL Black Voices, TV One.

* Create a site to Build on the Discussion – There were GREAT panelists at the conference; many with their own businesses and non-profits really having a positive impact on the world. Conferences like these really are the beginning, and a site that linked to all of the panelists, businesses and other groups making the change spoken about the conference (and a site that documented their progress) would add some real value that people could take back to their communities.

I could go on, but I think the point was made. There were missed opportunities to engage people like me who wanted to be there but could not for one reason or another.

Feel free to respond to any of my thoughts, but here are a few places where I would like input from you:

  • Was the CBC doing something online that I missed?
  • Agree/Disagree with anything said?
  • What else would you suggest for the coming year?