What Can a Hashtag Do For Your Sports Card Show?

Hashtags (image here) are playing a huge role in conventions and for our hobby - card and memorabilia shows.

Hashtags are used in twitter to identify a common subject for people to talk and share information about - the whole social component to social media. A hashtag is applied by someone when they are sending a tweet about the subject that people are following. For example, on Saturday, I was providing twitter updates on the CSAShow in Chantilly, VA. One of my twitter updates was, "Mike Ditka is running about 45 minutes late for his autograph session. #CSAShow."

Anyone following that hashtag (#CSAShow) would get that update.

This can be extremely helpful for people attending the card show and people hosting the show. If you are attending, you can read the comments that other people are making about a booth, autograph session or dealer. It makes the show smaller.

For example, I could send this via twitter, "The Triple Play booth was extremely helpful and gave great deals on some '52 Bowman cards. #CSAShow." That would helpful for others attending, the Triple Play dealer, and the show organizer.

Following a hashtag is easy and you don't have to be on twitter to do it.
1. Go to twitter.com
2. In the Search field (on the right), type: #CSAShow
- The search results will display and you can see everything said about the CSAShow.
- You can see pictures people sent via Twitter that go with the hashtag.
- Sure you had to go to the web site, but you don't need a twitter account to read it.

You can save the search or save the RSS of the search to your favorite RSS Reader. Getting it to send text messages to your phone or to your smart phone depends on the type of phone you have.

I'm a big fan of the hashtag for conventions and events. I think it makes the event smaller, brings a ton of information for people attending, setting up or hosting. There weren't too many doing it at the CSAShow this weekend, but do a search on #NSCCShow or #NSCC and see how much is going on for the National!