It is hard to miss the ubiquitous hashtag these days.  They are turning up everywhere, even crawling along the bottom of TV shows you watch.  Things like #Oscars or #DenverSEO.

Hashtags were originally created by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. A hashtag is a # sign (pound or number sign) followed by a word or phrase with no spaces.  They are used to identify messages about a specific topic.  Essentially, hashtags turn words into clickable links to your posts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social media sites.

For example: Ugh! Can’t make it to page one of the Google results for roofing companies in Denver! #DenverSearchEngineOptimization.

When you click on a hashtag, you are given a feed of posts that include that hashtag.   For example, if you click on #ColoradoSEO, you would be given a list of posts related to SEO in Colorado within the social media platform.

Google+, a relative newcomer to the social media scene, has taken hashtags one step further. Google+ hashtags operate the same as they do on Twitter or Facebook, etc.  However, they added an auto-create feature for hashtags by identifying keywords within the text and converting them to hashtags.  Additionally, Google+ has introduced related hashtags.  A related hashtags has to be earned by people using them on posts in conjunction with other hashtags.  They are earned by being shared more than once and fairly recently.

How can related hashtags be a benefit?  You could check on the importance of a topic you are writing about in a blog.  Enter topics into Google+ Explore, where related hashtags show up, and see how many related tags come up. A hashtag with no or few related tags may not be a very hot topic.