11 June 2012

Which hashtag is right for me? #Twitter

Recently, Marian Pierre-Louis posed a question on Google+:

"Question for all you social media friends out there: Have any of you ever done a study to determine which Twitter keywords have strong, loyal followings and which keywords seem to remain rapid fire and random without a core group? Just wondering..."

Although she was not referring to specifically genealogy related terms, her questions and further comments were intriguing to me, so I decided to do a little digging.



I found the site, www.HashTracking.com. You input a hashtag, and it tells you how many original tweets, retweets and mentions used that tag in the last twenty-four hours.

Here's a quick look at my results. I did this from 4:10pm - 4:15pm on 11 June 2012. For comparison purposes, I used common genealogy tags that I've seen used:


  • #genealogy: 359 original tweets, 89 retweets, 21 mentions
  • #familyhistory: 98 original tweets, 26 retweets, 7 mentions
  • #ancestry: 28 original tweets, 2 retweets, 0 mentions
  • #history: 829 original tweets, 552 retweets, 119 mentions
  • #socialmedia: 1194 original tweets, 269 retweets, 37 mentions
  • #archives: 187 original tweets, 81 retweets, 4 mentions


 I think, simply, an interesting look at the use of social media as our community continues to grow online. Personally, I try to use as many as possible in each post, within the confines of 140 characters.

The question posed is still one to be considered, and I thank Marian for putting it out there for us to spend a few minutes pondering. I would pass it forward to all of you: what hashtags do you use regularly, what do you use in passing?

8 comments:

  1. #Genealogy and #history are my most used hashtags. Sometime I use #archives, #Ozarks, or #Missouri.

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    1. Connie, thanks for reading! I did leave out the local terms, of course, we don't all search the same areas, and I wanted the post to be broad enough for all audiences. However, I do use #Colorado, #Nebraska, and a few others. Curious if you go into more detail; for example, folks in my county use #sumco to identify Summit County (Colorado). Is that something you have run into, also?
      Thank you! ~Jen

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    2. I have never used my county, but it looks like it might be worth trying.

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  2. I use #genealogy a lot and #Australia as well when it is of local interest - I don't usually go more local than that. I also #socislmedia and #android sometimes together with #genealogy

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    1. Jill, do you ever find the need to identify other countries, or just Australia? Curious - I've never thought to ID #USA or #England... but maybe I should?
      Thanks for reading, and commenting!
      ~ Jen

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  3. Good questions that you ask! I'm fairly new to Twitter, so I've used the hashtags that I see other people use: #genealogy, POCgenealoty, #familyhistory. I also use "ironic" hashtags just for humor sometimes because I see @FamilyStories and @ArchivalBiz using them, and it's fun.

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    1. Mariann,
      I've seen POCGenealogy before - but what is the "POC" part? And yes, I like the ironic tweets from everybody, too. :-)
      ~ Jen

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  4. Mine is the same as yours too. #genealogy and #family tree

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Please comment! I would love to hear your thoughts!