What's the most effective way to use hashtags?

What is a hashtag?

If you’re not a Twitter user yourself, hashtags can be a bit of a mystery. So before we go any further, if you’re unfamiliar with them, here’s Twitter’s own explanation.

Course hashtags

You should think about the hashtag once the course title has been agreed. Contact your Partnership Manager if you need help. Our standard is to use ‘FL’ at the start to help make the hashtag unique, to keep it distinct when being discussed alongside other courses that you and others may be running, and for consistency with other partners and courses on the platform.

A good course hashtag should be:

• As short as possible
• Self-explanatory
• Unique
• Easy to spell and easy to say (imagine having to say it on the radio—how easy would it be for listeners to remember?)
• Easy to read (using CamelCase)

For example: #FLHamlet, #FLRichardIII, #FLSustain

However, with longer or more complex course titles and subjects, there will often need to be some compromise to find a hashtag that works.

You should always search to see if anyone is using that hashtag for something else before using it yourself. After all, you don’t want any nasty surprises!

The hashtag can be added to your course page, where it will be displayed in its own section. Remember to use it when talking about your course on social media and in course emails.