Porto, Portugal – June 22, 2019: An evening view of the city of Porto and the Dom Luis I Bridge over the Douro River, as viewed from Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.
My wife has an abundance of amazing talents. One of them, strangely, is coming up with solid hashtags for events. As an example, for our wedding, we used #GoinsToTheChapel2019 so friends could post pictures and we could send our parents the direct link to the hashtag on social media. (This way our parents could see what everyone contributed, versus utilizing the services of another app people would have to download to their phone and create an account for.)
Separate of my wife’s super-human ability, when I post to social media, I often take a good bit of time the first picture or two and find applicable hashtags to apply.
Living in Chicago, I know we have about 25 popular hashtags people use. In Portugal, however, I don’t live there so I spent a few minutes before our trip wandering through social media to find applicable hashtags. The way I see it, I’m not just going to create a bunch of garbage hashtags no one will ever see, and it allows me to potentially get my pictures out there more.
Sometimes, those hashtags are the ever-so-simple #PortoSkyline and other times they’re more obscure like #SuperPorto. I did this for our honeymoon and random domestic work-trips, as well. The way I see it, invest a few extra minutes now, and I have a solid collection to work from later, instead of always using the same, underwhelming hashtags.
The last couple trips, my wife and I have used specific hashtags. For her 40th birthday we used #PortyForForty, and for our honeymoon we used #GoinsAroundTheWorld. As we traveled and uploaded pictures, friends and family can follow along, and it makes things a bit more entertaining for everyone.
Now that all the background is out of the way, I’ve noticed something interesting lately. As I’m uploading pictures to Instagram, I’m seeing the entire selection of hashtags I used ripped off and applied to other people’s pictures. I don’t really care much about the general-use ones because they’re all out there, and if I can save someone a few extra minutes and get them a good selection of hashtags so bit it. But it really bothers me when people don’t even read the hashtags I’m using, and instead just copy and paste. Recently a guy posted a picture from Spain and included all of my Portugal hashtags — including #PortyForForty, which makes no sense for his pictures. Also making no sense is his picture wasn’t even of Portugal; it was some random field in Spain. Before that someone grabbed my hashtags from Singapore, including #GoinsAroundTheWorld. After a few days I noticed they realized it was a pointless, personal hashtag and changed it, but it was still weird.
Look, we’ve all cut corners. I can’t say I never cheated in high school or college, but I sure as hell looked over what I did before turning it in. If you’re going to be lazy, be smart about it. I’m already saving a few minutes by giving a hearty selection of hashtags. Pretty soon I’m going to start inserting a few garbage hashtags, just to force people to edit before posting.
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