The Hashtag turned 10 years old. Love them or hate them, if you’re in business then you need them as part of your social and digital marketing strategy.

· Hashtags enable you to:

· Build brand name recognition and engagement

· Target a very specific audience

· Monitor your reputation and then follow up with excellent customer service

· Keep an eye on your competition

· Hear what’s going on in your industry and be part of the conversation

· Promote special events, contests or deals

· You can even track the performance of your chosen hashtags to see which has performed the best

· You can ‘hold a conference’ whenever you want – to bring a topic to the table that needs to be brainstormed and get feedback from your target market.

Good ol’ Chris Messina for sharing his idea freely with us all!

“I had no interest in making money (directly) off hashtags. They are born of the Internet and should be owned by no one. The value and satisfaction I derive from seeing my funny little hack used as widely as it is today is valuable enough for me to be relieved that I had the foresight not to try to lock down this stupidly simple but effective idea. “