When something happens in the world, it happens on Twitter and hashtags have helped to galvanise some of the most important moments in the past.
Yesterday (23 August) marked the 11th birthday of the hashtag, when Chris Messina @chrismessina tweeted #barcamp in a message reading: “how to you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?”
Since then the hashtag has evolved over the last 11 years from a user-created way to categorise or “tag” Tweets, to become part of our everyday speech, changing the nature of communication online and becoming one of the most influential symbols of the digital age.
Globally, an average of 125-million hashtags are shared every day on Twitter, helping users to see what’s happening in the world and explore what is being talked about right now.
A few of the top hashtags that have been shared globally over the past 12 months include:
* #iheartawards – The Oscars or the Grammy Awards are not the most discussed award show on Twitter – it’s the iHeartRadio Music Awards, an annually awarded American music award that was created in 2014 by the US radio station iHeartRadio to honour the most popular artists and songs of the previous year.
* #BestFanArmy – #Beliebers, #Swifties, #Arianators #BTS – we all know them: fans just love to celebrate their favorite artists on Twitter.
* #NowPlaying – What would a world be without music? Even our social media world cannot do without music and Twitter users love to tell us which songs they are listening to.
* #bbb18 – Twitter has always been a second screen for people watching TV. Especially around reality TV. No surprise then that #bbb18 the official hashtag of Big Brother Brasil belongs to the globally most used hashtags of this year.
* #WorldCup – Football is a global phenomenon and Twitter is the place where fans from all over the world come together to celebrate the game and be close to the action.This year’s #WorldCup is of course one of the most used hashtags of the year.
* #News – Whenever something happens in the world, it first happens on Twitter. No matter if local, national or global – the real-time medium enables users to share current #news directly and to get first-hand information.
* #job – More and more recruiters are using Twitter to share job listings and search for relevant candidates using the hashtag #job.
* #art – Which artist needs his own gallery if he has a Twitter account? Twitter is the platform for artists and art lovers from all over the world to present themselves to the public.