“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” ~ A.A. Milne in Winnie-the-Pooh

Would you like some hashtags to take you from your corner of the Forest into the Twittersphere? I’ll share some hashtag lists and some ideas for ministering to people through conversations on Twitter. I’ve linked all the hashtags so you can check out these conversations in Twitter.

Hashtag Guidelines

A little advice first:

• Don’t overdo the hashtags. Use a maximum of two.
• Give back on Twitter twice as often as you post about your own content.
• Know when particular hashtags are overused. I recommend RiteTag  so you can check if you’re choosing the best hashtags.
• If you’ll be using some of the following hashtags regularly, turn on Twitter’s hashtag alerts to follow the twitter feed.

Twitter Hashtags for Ministry CLICK TO TWEET

Days-of-the-week Hashtags

#FollowFriday, or #FF, has been part of Twitter from day one for introducing a user to your followers. You should mention one user in your tweet with an explanation of why you recommend following them. If you want, you can also use #followmonday, #followtuesday, #followwednesday, and #followthursday. I’ll give you two click to tweet examples at the end of this post.

Choose a few of these themes during the week and speak the gospel into them…

• #MilitaryMonday
• #MusicMonday
• #MotivationMonday (inspirational quotes)
• #TravelTuesday (photos make these tweets even more sharable)
• #CharityTuesday
• #TransformationTuesday (include a before and after photo)
• #TipTuesday
• #WonderfulWednesday
• #WisdomWednesday or #WisdomWed
• #Women2Follow on Wednesdays (started by WomenWhoTech)
• #ThankfulThursday
• #RTThursday (thank your retweeters)
• #leadfriday (Good for those of you with leadership blogs!)
• #goodnewsfriday

Why not make a small plan for yourself (and use Hootsuite to schedule your tweets)? Especially if you’re a blogger and these topics fit your blog, tweet about content on the web as well as your past and present posts that fit these topics. Here’s two sample plans. You could even alternate these:

Week Plan A

• #MotivationMonday
• #TravelTuesday
• #Women2Follow
• #ThankfulThursday
• #FF

Week Plan B

• #MusicMonday
• #TipTuesday
• #WisdomWed
• #RTThursday
• #leadfriday

Nonprofit Hashtags

I checked specifically for Christian hashtags on RiteTag. They rate #faith as great and #christian or #jesus as good, meaning that #faith will likely be discovered soon while the others will be discovered eventually. They didn’t show many other good choices. You could also try the following:

• #nptech (nonprofit tech)
• #sm4sg (social media for social good)
• #sm4np (social media for nonprofits)
• #socialgood
• #volunteer

Sample Tweets

I’m writing on Wednesday, so here are two tweets you could send now (or schedule using Hootsuite) of two Cru leaders and bloggers:

• Starting fires in hearts and minds http://www.judydouglass.com/ @jeedoo417 #Women2Follow #WisdomWed CLICK TO TWEET
• Living and leading in light of eternity http://abreflections.wordpress.com/ @AndreaBuczynski #Women2Follow #leadfriday  CLICK TO TWEET

Will you join me in these global conversations? Do you have Twitter hashtags you can recommend to us?

NOTES:

• Read How to Get More Clickthrough Rates on Your Tweets for more tips!
• Use RiteTag to see if your tags are “great.” They also rate hashtags as “unused” and “overused.” Sign up for free with your Twitter and/or Facebook account. You can autoschedule five posts daily for free.
• For more details about using these hashtags to deliver your message and values, I recommend Hashtags for Every Day of the Week by Social Media Delivered and Top 10 Nonprofit Hashtags to Spark Social Good by nonprofit hub.