From Wikipedia: A hashtag is a word or an unspaced phrase prefixed with the hash symbol (“#”). It is a form of metadata tag. Words in messages on microblogging and social networking services such as Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram and Twitter may be tagged by putting “#” before them,[1] either as they appear in a sentence, (e.g., “New artists announced for #SXSMusicFestival “)[2] or appended to it. Hashtags make it possible to group such messages, since one can search for the hashtag and get the set of messages that contain it. A hashtag is only connected to a specific medium and can therefore not be linked and connected to pictures or messages from different platforms.

So, now you know the technical version. Here is what I have found. Hashtags can be used as a keyword, a search term or can be used for branding as well.

I have been working with a client for some time and her assistant contacted me regarding hashtags and how they work. I showed her this:

I used the search term “#leadership” and it came up number 3 in the search engines from a post from Google Plus. This is exactly what I had wanted to achieve.

If anyone asks you if using hashtags in posts for branding or keywords, point them in this direction!