Twitter is its own land with its own rules. A lot of people see the inherent use of the hashtag and then abuse it, which thereby reduces the power of their message. Better to be judicious.
How many hashtags is too many?
I’d say no more than three hashtags at the end of your tweet and you shouldn’t be doing the maximum every time.
Some more tips to prevent hashtag abuse:
- Don’t have too many hashtags in the middle of your tweet. “Check out or latest post on #luxury car rentals.” is fine. “Have you seen the latest #fashion #news coming out of #Milan?” is excessive.
- Unless it’s meant for humor or you’re starting a Twitter chat don’t make up your own hashtags. I used to do this and it didn’t go anywhere. People will look at big hashtags like #news or #politics, but #barnightwithmygirls isn’t going to get you traction. If people are following you, they’ll already see your tweets.
- You can have night/event-specific hashtags, but make sure you’re not the only one using them and that there is uniformity. There’s no way to concisely follow the event if some people are tweeting #ttyconf, others are tweeting #ttyconf2011 and yet others are tweeting #ttycon.
Last thought: If you’re having real conversations (as you should on Twitter), the majority of your tweets shouldn’t have any hashtags at all.
Don’t be afraid to hashtag, #just #don’t #make #every #word one. That’s #noise. #andawasteofcharacters
