Why do people put # before words?

I’ve been on Twitter for a while now but for the longest time I was stumped by why people put a ‘hash’ sign, or ‘number’ sign before words on posted on Twitter.

This symbol # when used on Twitter is know as the ‘hashtag’.

It’s a way of tracking a conversation about a particular topic of interest. You’ll often see it in the ‘trending topics’ list in the sidebar at Twitter.com

Using this character in front of key words helps other people who are interested in the things you are to find you.

if you want to see the hashtag at work you can either go directly to twitter http://twitter.com/#!/search-home and type # immediately followed by the word or phrase you want to search (no spaces), for example #socialmedia #ladygaga #blogging #quote

Or you could go to http://www.hashtags.org/ and view a selection of popular tags.

These #symbols, sometimes also known as the ‘pound sign’ has also been used for comedic effect particularly by many of the social bloggers to convey sarcasm or irony.

Increasingly TV shows and advertisers are creating their own tags for branding and publicity purposes.

There’s also a growing trend for the #tag to be used in other social media platforms such as facebook and some twitter die-hards have been known to use them in text messages.

Where did the hashtag come from?

Hashtags were popularized during the San Diego forest fires in 2007 when Nate Ritter used the hashtag “#sandiegofire” to identify his updates related to the disaster. Via

How to hashtag on Twitter

There are no firm rules, it’s an evolving practice, but it’s generally felt they should be used sparingly and only to add real meaning and value.

Remember to keep the tag as one word with no spaces or it won’t work. You could use underscores to join the words if you wish but it’s not the usual convention.