At the epicenter of Twitter marketing (and bad jokes) are hashtags. Hashtags have become dominant in the stream, depicting events, twitter chats, initiatives, and more. Yet, much has been said about how Twitter has become too noisy and commercialized.
Enter the hashtag filter, compliments of Tweetdeck.
And what happens?
The signal increases, and the marketing blah blah recedes. Real conversations appear in the stream again. How refreshing!
But what about missing out on important conversations?
Never fear! Adding a column based on a search term like IgniteDC or that favorite hashtaged term du jour provides a direct view of relevant conversations.
“But, but, but,” sputters the marketer, “What about tracking and monitoring Twitter conversations?”
There are two ways to look at this: 1) Search is easier with the hashtag, yes. So if you can get people to use a hashtag, great! Monitoring is easier.
2) Twitter users don’t care whether hashtags make your marketing work easier. They only use hashtags if it is relevant to Their Conversation. And if hashtags have become a form of marketing pollution without context then less and less people will pay attention to the almighty # sign.
Filters only allow people to act on disinterest. But make no bones about it, people are increasingly filtering out the noise with tools like Tweetdeck or with glazed over eyeballs. And in the case of hashtags, yet another communications tool has become over-marketed and devalued.
What do you think of the proliferation of hashtagged conversations on Twitter?