Is there a future for #TroveTuesday?

Yesterday on Twitter I sparked some discussion about the #Trove Tuesday hashtag which was quite timely as it is three years this week since Australian geneabloggers started writing about Trove and highlighting one or some of its resources in a blog post. They would then post links to these articles to various social media with the hashtag #trovetuesday. This tag has been taken up by various other Australian agencies when praising Trove.

I have noticed over the three years that I personally and as a blogger for two societies have been publishing #trovetuesday posts that the number of posts has dropped to a trickle. Yesterday (I had the day wrong) I published a post for my family history group which drew this response from David.

I did a search and discovered that our hashtag (the geneacommunity got it first) has been used by a market and bakery in the UK. After I posted a cheeky reply several other Australians chimed in with thoughts about the use of various hashtags for posts about Trove.

The subject of our discussion also weighed in with an opinion.

I say we take the beach umbrella approach where there is room for all (including a lottery in the US) and keep #trove tuesday alive. I will be continuing to post using the #trovetuesday hashtag (and that is not influenced my the fact that I have several posts scheduled on my blogs into 2016).

As Carmel suggests we can use #troveAu when posting on another day.

Geneabloggers I'd love to see the #trovetuesday hashtag being dominated by posts about our nation's treasure, Trove, once more. How about embracing it once more.

Sharing the Love #NFHM2014

There is an amazing menu of events for National Family History Month over on their website. These events are taking place all over Australia and in cyberspace as well.

#NFHM2014

I imagine that several thousands of Australian enthusiasts will attend one or more of these events and some will even report on them on social media or other websites. I would love to hear what they are attending, delivering or learning but there are several places on the web where reports are being posted. I follow Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and over 200 Australian genealogy and history blogs but know that I am missing out on lots of news.

#NFHM2014

Voluntary co-ordinator of the event Shauna Hicks recently tweeted the hashtag for National Family History Month. If we all include the hashtag #NFHM2014 when reporting on events then search engines may index the posts.

#NFHM2014

I am not a huge fan of Twitter but I think, it certain situations it is an excellent vehicle for aggregating news. If those of us with Twitter accounts write a short tweet with any #NHFM2014 news we find  then others can access Twitter, do a search by the hashtag and get a results list containing relevant posts.

#NFHM2014

At the moment, if I do such a search on Twitter, presently many of tweets containing the hashtag  #NFHM2014 come from one Twitter user - me. How about turning that around? 

#NFHM2014

If you or your society has a blog or website you could attach a  #NHFM2014 label or tag to your post or article.

Let's share the love for National Family History Month by using the hashtag.

Join our next GeniAus Hangout on Air - What a Month that was - #NFHM2014 

Details https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/c250rpao6g1a99j1taoruss8teg

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Postscript: The power of hashtags

It is only about two minutes since I published this post. look what happened when I did a search for the hashtag.