Recently I was giving a presentation on social networking and the audience looked at me strangely when I mentioned hashtags. I wasn’t talking about the crispy breakfast item from McDonald’s or a street drug. Thus, I thought a definition and examples of hashtags would be helpful.

What is a hashtag? Think of a hashtag as a kind of shorthand for social networking. You use this shorthand to describe your conversion so that it’s marked for others, so that they can at a single glance know what you’re talking about. You generally start with a “#” sign and then your word(s). For example in Twitter if you talking about NASCAR, you would type your comment and “#nascar” and so it has context. Once you tag your conversation, it then serves as a great way to search for conversations. Search Hashtags now to see what people are talking about.

Here’s a list of common Hashtags… What hashtags do you use often?