Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Hashtags for Public Policy Advocacy on Twitter

Twitter has emerged as an important communications tool for public policy.  Many of the most popular members of Twitter are either public officials or news commentators who focus on politics.  One of the most important organizational tools on Twitter is the so-called "hashtag." 

The hashtag received its name due to the use of the hash symbol "#" (otherwise known as the pound sign or the number sign) immediately prior to a short word or acronym that categorizes certain topic areas. 

If you are creating a lobbying campaign online and are using Twitter as part of your strategy, be sure to create a short word or acronym by which you and your supporters all tag their tweets.

For a great example of a political movement on Twitter, search for #TCOT (which stands for Top Conservatives on Twitter),

Many events create hashtags so attendees can communicate with each other during the event and those not in attendance can easily find information from the event. 

Search by keywords like "politics", "government", "Congress", and other related terms to find the politically inclined opinion leaders on Twitter and then follow them.  Hopefully they will follow you back and learn about your public policy campaign via Twitter.

What's your hashtag?

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