Whether it’s shedding light on global movements and events, connecting people everywhere to like-minded communities or just establishing a direct path to the content you’re most passionate about, it all happens on Twitter.

Thanks to the power of the global cultural phenomenon that has shaped the way we communicate: the hashtag.

Born on Twitter in 2007, celebrates its 14th anniversary on August 23rd, otherwise known as #HashtagDay.

14 years ago on August 23, @chrismessina Tweeted #barcamp, the first time a hashtag was ever used.

Over the past 14 years, it has evolved from a user-created way to categorize or ‘tag’ Tweets, to becoming part of our everyday speech, changing the nature of communication online and becoming one of the most influential symbols of the digital age.

To celebrate its impact in shaping conversations and creating communities that unite millions of people across the globe, Twitter will launch a new #HashtagDay emoji that will be live for the day and available in multiple languages, including Arabic, allowing people across the globe to join in on the conversations.

From January through June 2021, a whopping 12.6B Tweets included at least one hashtag, with 140M of them being unique, proving that people on Twitter are getting more and more creative every year.

Looking at Egypt, the top hashtags that have been trending include:

Between January and June 2021, 197.5M hashtags were used on Twitter in Egypt – out of which 20M were unique hashtags.

The total number of hashtags used in Egypt saw a 15.4% increase as compared to the same period last year.

Some of the top Tweeted hashtags in Egypt include:

1. #newprofilepic
2. #فلسطين (Palestine)
3. #رمضان (Ramadan)
4. #كورونا (Corona)
5. #الاهلي (Al Ahli football club)

Additionally, here’s how people can leverage the power of a hashtag to Tweet:

• Hashtags can actually help categorise Tweets – just use the symbol (#) before a relevant keyword or phrase in a Tweet
• To access all the conversations on a particular theme – just click on the hashtagged word in any message and all the Tweets with a similar hashtag will come up on your timeline
• Popular hashtags often emerge as Trending Topics
• A hashtag will not work if there are spaces or punctuations in it
• If a user Tweets with a hashtag on a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find their Tweet

Happy #HashtagDay!