I came across a pretty good article from The Age this morning that explained how we, as a Twitter-loving society, have just beaten the lowly hashtag into terrible irrelevance. The video above aired on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show, and I laughed so hard when I saw it, not only because it was well done, but because it’ so true.

Making a Hash of Social Media Use by Ryan Ferguson

I’ve seen plenty of examples (and sadly used plenty of examples myself) of hashtags that do nothing to really help your message. I once described the hashtag as a convenient “comedy monkey,” so to speak. If I wanted to be witty but didn’t have it in me, I could just slap a hashtag on there, and perhaps the irony of it would make up for the lack of idea.

#notalways

A couple of really good takeaways I thought from this piece:

1. If you want people to find your content, don’t make your hashtag too broad. The example used in this story was “#schools.” Good luck with someone finding your tweet through that pile of results.

2. Don’t force it. In the same was as some people prefer their produce, let it grow organically. A quick search review of McDonald’s use of a poorly conceived hashtag can tell you where things go horribly wrong if you push it.

Do you have questions about your social media presence? What are some of the most horrendous hash tags you’ve seen? Leave me a comment.