Have you ever seen something that looks like this... #myfavtvshow ... in the corner of your TV screen?  These are hashtags.  Hashtags are like keywords for Twitter that people follow and monitor.  People also use these hashtags to communicate with one another about trending topics.  This is why TV shows have adopted hashtags.  The objective is to engage people in conversation, regarding a specific TV event or trending topic, and bring it even more exposure than it's already getting on TV.

If you go to search.twitter.com, while logged into Twitter, you will access the Twitter search index.  Type any hashtag that is being used in that search box and you will see what I'm talking about.  If you follow a hashtag like this, in real time, you will see people tweeting at a rare of 1 tweet per second, or less.

With everyone watching, you can create hashtags with a blog URL, capture page URL or any URL you wish to drive traffic to by simply send a tag out that looks like this.

For example, I'm a fan of the TV show Burn Notice on the USA network.  If I do a search via Twitter, for the hashtag #burnnotice (while a new episode is playing), I can incorporate tweets that will drive traffic and even go viral for me.

Here's an example of what I would use...

"Watching #burnnotice and trending topics on Twitter regarding health care when I found this:  goo.gl/EefDB, please share, thanks!"

You can do this with ANY hashtag, you just have to be a little creative.

You can also monitor hashtags using www.hashtags.org.

Have fun!

Rex