In this thread, some of us dinosaurs are being schooled as to the use of hashtags. As I commented there, if I googled “polar vortex”, the first result was Twitter, followed by a number of news/weather/science sites and Wiki.
Then I did a Google search using “#polarvortex”, and got a whole bunch of results for social media.
I don’t understand why the second type of results would interest anyone. I would would appreciate any discussion to help me understand this.
Tho I don’t use Twitter or Instagram, I COULD imagine that if there was a particular personality/commentator I liked, I might regularly check THEIR Twitter - the same way I might follow a blog, or check up on friends on FB. But I just don’t understand the allure of CARING about what random other people think or say - at least not until I’ve gotten some info from experts, or somewhat reliable factual/historical background.
I don’t remember the hashtag, but the search for the Boston Marathon bombers was on Twitter and it was fascinating reading the news as it developed by people who were there.
In instagram, the way I use it, it’s to quickly look up current pictures from users or businesses I’m interested in seeing. For example, I’m a wedding photographer. If I get a wedding at a venue I’ve never shot at before, I’ll search #venuename and #venuenamewedding to see what relatively current photos are out there and get a sense of the space. Similarly, clients may find me because they search instagram hashtags for their venues or something more generic like #[location]weddindphotography (although that would be rare, as such a broad hashtag generates many results to get lost in. My location generates 35,000 tags and #chicagowedding generates over 300,000). But, yes, people do find business this way. I suck at social media, especially Instagram, but the most successful photographers I know find a good number of clients through well-managed social media, including effective use of hashtags.
So one segment of the population uses it for inspiration, and for drumming up business. I’ve also subscribed to folks Instagram feeds based on hashtags I’ve found that were interesting.
In a lot of cases the perceived value is not so much what people think about #subjectoftheday, but being able to quickly estimate how many people on that forum care about #subjectoftheday enough to use the hashtag. If a lot of people use, say, #watergate, that shows that watergate is a “trending” topic.
I’m a very heavy user of Twitter and Instagram. Using a hashtag allows you to click on the hashtag and see other posts that are related. For example, #polarvortex might take you to the photos I posted to Instagram yesterday.
Why are you doing google searches for Twitter stuff? The point of the hashtag is for finding content within the universe of the application you’re trying to search.
You pretty much answered your own question in the other post. If you don’t use Twitter or IG, you should ignore them. I don’t know if anyone’s explanation is really going to make sense if you’re not familiar with the applications at all.
Do you understand the concept of a feed? (Not being snarky, I’m trying to gauge where you are) In both, just like Facebook, you select “friends” or people whose content you want to see in a more or less chronological fashion when you open the app or website. These can be actual friends, news organizations, celebrities, talking heads, companies, municipalities, politicians etc. The general “I don’t care what other people have for lunch” criticism shows a complete lack of understanding of what social media is. Breaking news, humor, sports talk, political wonks being wonky…there’s a wealth of “stuff” out there and you curate your feed to your interests.
Now, back to hashtags. You have followed all of the people and organizations you want, but you can also follow hashtags, which will bring you tweets, IG posts etc on topics you’re interested in from people you don’t follow. For instance, on Instagram, you could follow the hashtag #gardening to see all of the posts from all of the users who’ve included that hashtag in their post. This will fill your feed with a topic that makes you happy, without having to add all of those strangers as “friends”.
In the concept of the creepily prescient 2002 novel?
Yeah, I understand that people have their devices set up to deliver various content to them. I guess I think of it as searching specific topics, news media, etc. I guess the way I figure it is, if I want to look for something, I can. I don’t need it regularly spewed at me.
To provide context, this thread was inspired by a column in today’s Chicago Trib by Dahleen Glanton (article seems to be behind paywall). She was talking about the recent Chicago coldsnap and how tough Chicagoans are. She described posting a screenshot of the local weather report before she even got out of bed. Then she saw people posting pictures of themselves bundled up, so she bundled up - and put on lipstick and earrings - and went outside - not because she had anywhere to go, but instead, simply to take a selfie!
Perhaps she was being ironic, and making fun of herself, but I did not detect that from her writing. Everything she described struck me as insane.
I just googled the columnist to see if I could quote the article, and I saw that she had tweeted that she would be discussing her cold selfie somewhere sometime… :rolleyes:
I wonder what percentage of social media is used for “what people had for lunch”, cold weather selfies, or “wassup?” Just characterizing activity as “curating your feed” does not change the quality of the substance.
Yeah - but I guess that sorta hints at a distinction as I see it. SDMB is one of very few on-line “social” places I go regularly. The others are my e-mail and a couple of FB groups. When I click on SDMB, I can quickly scroll through the forums I want, and see if anyone has posted anything I might be interested in. If I want more factual, well-supported discussions, I stick to GQ/GD. OR - if I’m bored and want to waste time, I can dig deeper.
I’ve always preferred more limited search approach. For example, for a long time, I was HEAVILY into planted aquaria. I had a short list of sites I went to, and a couple of what I considered the best fora. Same when I owned a classic car. And same now when my main interest is bluegrass music and upright bass.
I think I perceive my approach as somewhat more “intentional”, as opposed to having a constant “net” out there, scooping up as a huge amount of info on disparate topics, which is then presented to me in an ongoing manner.
I readily acknowledge that the approaches are related, but they seem somewhat different to me.
Ah, yes, that reminds me. Many parties or weddings I’ve been to (mostly working as an event professional) will have a hashtag for the event for people to share and index their photos. So a big birthday blowout might have a note for guests to post their photos with #bobs40thbash or a wedding may have #sueandjohnforever or usually something far more cutesy and clever than that. Here’s a better set of examples of wedding hashtags. But I see them at other big events, not just weddings. Event organizers at concerts, conventions, etc., will encourage guests to take photos and post them to social media with a common hashtag, so it’s easy to find all the photos of that event.
The reverse search is also another use If you have noticed many articles now include a list of twitter comments at the end of it. The author can search on #polarvortex and compile a list of comments to support his or her article. And twitter users who are all about being popular get bragging rights that their snarky comment was included in an actual news article.
I’m back here goggling at people still having negative opinions of other people’s selfies. How dare she get a photo of herself during a memorable time of her life, probably the coldest it’s ever been in her lifetime in Chicago, and the coldest in decades? Because we ever looked through grandma’s polaroid album of yet another family picnic or her trip to the grand canyon and scoffed at her for having the gall to take so many photos of things she thought was important or fun or cool, and that maybe she dared to be in them. So, what, because digital photography means you can take more photos at no extra cost, suddenly, it’s “bad”, it’s “narcissistic”? I don’t take a lot of selfies, and in return I’ll be lucky if there’s even one photo a year of what I looked like. There will be next to no record of me for future generations. I’m not sure that’s something worth aspiring to, especially when it means making fun of someone capturing memories they’ll be able to look back on. Meanwhile, people cry about having “only 5 photos of cousin Bob before he passed” while at the same time telling other people to limit their photos because “you look vain”. Uh-huh, ok. Pick one or the other.
Anyway, on topic, hashtags are used to talk to other people about things in an organized manner. Since twitter now indexes your whole tweet, a hashtag is most useful for indexing when your specific topic wouldn’t necessarily come up in the body of your sentence. I participate in fandom, which means I produce artistic content that other people want to see because they like the subject matter. Without hashtags to index the subject of my artwork, nobody would ever find the art. Hashtags are the most basic of business for creatives.
Literally nothing. I use Twitter only because my job requires it.
OK, so not nothing. I do enjoy some of the things the few dozen people I follow post. I follow a handful of celebrities, from A-list to E-list, and a few have “Liked” or even responded to things I’ve tweeted/replied to them. That always makes my day, for some reason.
The only time I ever pay attention to hashtags is when Jimmy Fallon sends out his weekly hashtag game for a bit that he crowdsources.
I use Twitter primarily as a way to keep in contact with the creators of the media I consume. Sometimes it’s because they’ve said something and I want to discuss it with them. Sometimes it’s to check in on content I may not yet have seen. Often it’s to check up on them when they haven’t put out content for a while. And some just have interesting lives that they talk about, like this creator who moved to Japan and is documenting the interesting new things that happen.
I also have a couple feeds that are just cute things related to dogs. One is someone posing as a dog giving their thoughts. The other is someone who posts pics of dogs and “rates” them. Both are just a little cuteness to brighten up my day. (I even have them on a “list” for dogs.)
The hashtags I mostly use is the title of the content. But I also will sometimes be interested in what people are saying about a topic, so I’ll look up that hashtag. Occasionally a creator will suggest a tag to use for a group topic, and you can look at that tag to see what people had to say. And, if something is in the news, it can be good to judge that kinds of reactions.
I’ve also learned about news stories from Twitter, simply because someone I like posted the news story. Since I like them, we often tend to have things in common, meaning I’m more likely to be interested in the news. I’m not much for actually looking up news–I actually learn a lot about the world from people posting about the news here, and only then looking into it.
So, even though I don’t really Tweet, and have only 3 followers, and don’t even really have much of a Twitter feed, I do get some use out of the site.
