Some people seem to feel a need to hashtag¹ every second word of their tweets. I don’t really understand why, maybe it’s because we all have been told that they are good for “increasing your reach”², but it’s driving me nuts. It makes reasonable, smart, cool people sound like soulless social-media ding-dongs.

In this article, Daniel Victor examines the futility of using hashtags to get more followers, and then nails the productive uses for them:

They’re great for gathering small groups of people; […] When kept to a small scale, they can ably perform their service as a filter of relevant tweets (#EastVillage is more manageable than #NYC). They can be useful for subtext; we’ve all sent emails and text messages that should have had #sarcasm attached. The New York Times started the #snowku hashtag to gather snow-themed haikus during a February snowstorm.

They also work great for context, for example, when brain-dumping about Star Trek: The Next Generation, it’s often easier to write #tng than to explain that I’m watching a twenty-odd years old TV show.