Lowcountry Geek

So #hashtags (better known as the pound or number sign) tend to be one of the most problematic issues for people first entering the world of Twitter.

What do they mean?

How do I use them?

How do I follow them?

How do I start one?

Those are all common questions. And most of those can be answered through Mashable's Guide to Twitter.

Mashable will teach you things like how to find, track and organize hashtags.

But I'd like to address another use of hashtags that's less popular but I find to be just as important: a clue as to what you're talking about when you send me a tweet.

Often I send out tweets and hours if not days later I'll get something sent my way that looks like "@irleslie yes" (for you Twitter novices out there the @irleslie means someone is responding to a past tweet of mine.)

So what am I supposed to make of this simple 'yes' response? Which of the 21 tweets I sent out over the past 3 days (according to How Often Do You Tweet I log about 7 tweets a day) are you responding to?

Was it the one when I asked if the black socks match the brown shoes? Or was it the one when I asked if the red cord was the one I needed to cut to disable the bomb? 

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