Now that you’ve had a few weeks to putter around on Twitter on your own, we’d like to offer pointers on how to make those those tweets a bit more effective.

You may have noticed the list of random words and phrases on the right side of your Twitter account. This is your Trending List (TL) and it represents the most popular topics in the world at any given moment. You can also adjust this list to show only trending topics in the US (and other countries) or large cities.

Occasionally this list will include words that have been designated as a hashtag. Hashtags are words or phrases Twitter users use to link to other users about a common topic. For instance, as of this writing the hashtag #unbroken was on the TL. This hashtag refers to a new album that was released today, and people who are discussing the album on Twitter use the tag to connect to others who are talking about the same subject.

While service-learning and civic engagement may not beat pop culture out of those top 10 trending topics to make the list, we can use hashtags to our advantage in the higher education world as well. Hashtags can be used to connect users tweeting about any topic, leading professors, community partners, and even Missouri Campus Compact to use them.

Because hashtags are a great way to connect and engage with those of similar interests, we’ve created the #ccheartland hashtag for our upcoming conference. Simply add “#ccheartland” to any conference-related tweet to add to the conversation. Once you’ve tweeted, you can click on the hyperlink the hashtag creates to read and reply to what others are saying about the conference. Alternatively, you can type “#ccheartland” in the search bar at the top of the page to see the top tweets on the subject.

If you need any help with your tweets, feel free to email me at samantha676(at)live.missouristate.edu. Until then, happy hashtagging!