The Local Power of #Hashtags

Our online lives are rapidly integrating with our real lives, to the point that many of us consume far more information online than we do in the actual physical world.

Our online networks don't just include our close friends, but they’re also tailored to our specific interests and consumption habits. Whether you like that or not, it has the potential to be very powerul on a local level. 

One way to harness that power is through Twitter hashtags. Local Twitter user @MBenti will share her experience with hashtags (#DavisCA and #UCDavis are hashtags) later in this article.

Whether you’re a business owner, blogger, student, professional or just a consumer of information (like the rest of us), the basic information below can help you access useful local information as well as send it out directly to your intended audience. You can follow @DavisCAPatch on Twittter here. 

Simple Guide to Twitter

If you already have Twitter under control, just scroll to the next section. If not, here are the basics, straight from their site:

At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets. Each Tweet is 140 characters in length, but don’t let the small size fool you—you can share a lot with a little space … You can tell your story within your Tweet, or you can think of a Tweet as the headline (and link to your story/business/photo/etc) …

Twitter connects businesses to customers in real-time. Businesses use Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in their products and services, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and influential people.

For more information, check out Twitter 101 for Businesses, our guide to doing business on Twitter.

#DavisCA & #UCDavis Are Hashtags!

All you have to do is include #DavisCA or #UCDavis within the 140 characters of your tweet to properly use our local hashtags. If you click on that hashtag (which will become a link when posted to Twitter), you’ll see your tweet along with every other tweet that also contained the hashtag. 

That may not seem like a big deal, but its potential on a local level is actually massive for both consumers and distributors of information. You can think of it as a virtual landing place for all things local, and it can be scanned with total ease. It's a great way to keep a pulse on the online community. 

When Davis Patch launched in early July, I was greeted by a Twitter user named @MBenti. Her tweet to me said:

@DavisCAPatch Thank you for using the #DavisCA hashtag! Awesome. :)

When I began writing this article, I decided to reach out to @MBenti (Marissa Bentivoglio), who had moved to Davis from Burlington, Vermont, where the hashtag #btv is heavily used. (BTV is the airport code). Here’s a bit of what Marissa had to say:

“It’s an online space for community members to get together and support each other. Since I moved to California a year ago, the #btv hashtag has kept me in the loop with what’s going on in Vermont in a way I couldn’t get from just reading the newspapers. I enjoy the first-hand experiences a Twitter hashtag provides – for example Burlington VT was built on a hill facing west overlooking Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains which means beautiful sunsets. I love looking at photos that people share of the sunsets tagged with #btv, or how much snow they’re getting in winter months.”

Davis, also a progressive city, has so much potential with using Twitter to share information. The hashtag #Davis is so generic that it brings in results from too many other places, but #DavisCA narrows it down and also informs outsiders to what the hashtag is referring.  

It's all about joining the conversation, and I would encourage everyone to do so.  There are no rules, no right or wrong.  If it can provide value to the community - a networking event, fundraiser or relates to members of the Davis community, or even if you had a great experience at a local restaurant, tweet about it!  Exemplary use I've seen of the #DavisCA hashtag has been by incoming pub and restaurant @DeveresDavis.  They've to get feedback on what they're going to offer the residents of Davis as well as advertise their open interviews to fill open positions at their new pub.

I look forward to seeing where Twitter will take Davis, and hope it catches on here as well as it has in Burlington.

The value of the #DavisCA and #UCDavis hashtags will become greater as more people embrace and use them to tag local content. Consider sharing this article with any person or organization that you think may benefit from its information.

Rather than repeat what Marissa has already said, I’ll provide some useful links on how to set up Twitter and engage the community. If you have any questions or additional helpful information, start a discussion below this article or email me at justin.cox@patch.com. Follow Davis Patch on Twitter or like our Facebook page for more local news. 

• How to create a Twitter account
• How to use hashtags