Time to fess up.
So, I've finally started to pay attention to, become interested in, engage in, make some noise in, grow addicted to, be entertained by and enjoy Twitter. No kidding. (Don't believe me? Yeah, well, take a gander at the Twitter feed over there on the right-hand side of this blog. Right there under that picture of me that -- whoa -- seriously needs to be updated. Ahhh...note to self....)
Okay, but alas and anyway. I swore it just wasn't in me, and now here I am...dare I say...tweeting on a somewhat regular basis. At the office, while I'm working at home, when I'm fixing dinner...I even read tweets tonight while I was on the treadmill at the gym. Uhm. (!)
And we're all adults here, yes? Yes, I think we are. Or at least most of us are mostly adults at least most of the time. Probably. Maybe. So I'll go ahead and throw out the "A" word, even though I struck it out a few sentences prior to this one. (Oh, haha, c'mon, admit it. You thought I meant that "A" word, didn't you?) Yeah, no. What I meant was addicted. That "A" word. I won't say I'm there yet, but I'll admit that I'm beginning to see how I could be. So apples-falling-off-tree-branches easily....
But there's just one teensie-weensie little thing that's hindering my existence in the Twittersphere, and that is this: I don't quite get the hashtags thing. I mean, I understand the purpose of hashtags and how they work. I understand what will happen if I search for one, or if I use one myself in one of my own tweets. (At this point, you're drumming your fingers on the table, wondering what in Sam Hill is left for me not to understand about hashtags, aren't you?) Well, okay. What I don't understand is where they all come from -- at least in some cases -- and how you find ones that you might want to use that are already in use (if that's even the Twitter way).
I know people, businesses, organizations and et cetera make them up on purpose sometimes. Like when the organization I work for holds big events, they create and assign hashtags. Yep, got it. Check. But I'm talking about the ones that people always seem to be throwing out at the end of their tweets that point to something that's not a major event or whatever.
For example, say I tweet the following (which is, truth be told, true): I recently finished re-reading Stephen King's 11/22/63.
Now I realize I'm not obligated in any way to append a hashtag of any size, shape or relative importance to my 140-ish characters. But it seems rather logical that I might go ahead and add any of the following: #king, #stephenking, #11/22/63. Those make total sense, and I absolutely get it.
But what about any from this next group: #stephenkingauthor, #stephenkingrules, #bestkingbook, #besttimetravelbook, #bestbookever, #bookrec. Those do, in fact, make sense (at least to me), but do I just throw them out there willy nilly? How do I know that other people will even know they exist, if they don't already? Better yet, what if other hashtags, very similar to these in meaning if not in form, already exist and are in use (say, #bookrecommendation, #recommendabook, #irecommendyouread)? Should I look for them? Should I try to use what's already out there? If so, then how?
My consternation becomes even more obvious (to me, of course, but maybe not you?), and for the same reasons I listed for the previous bunch, when we're talking about hashtags such as the following (still assuming they might follow the sample tweet I proposed above): #booksthatbelongtohistory, #geniuswriter, #wishicouldbesocreative, #timeresonates, #dancingislife, #youwouldlovethis, #putitonyourlist, #waytokill30someoddhours, #50lbsofprint.
So...there it is. Comments -- especially those offering up explanations -- are welcome.
Oh, and by the way? A friend at work only had this to say when I told her about my hashtag anxiety: You're way overthinking it. Way.
Yes, clearly....
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