A Canadian perspective on #HashtagDay 2019

For more than a decade, Canadians have been connecting to culture via top hashtags and each year in late August, we look back at how hashtags have impacted and evolved the way we communicate and interact on Twitter and across social media. 

The hashtag was born on Twitter on August 23, 2007, first mentioned by Chris Messina (@chrismessina) and forever changing how we communicate on our service. As a result, each year on August 23, we celebrate #HashtagDay.

In the 12 years since, hashtags have helped to galvanize some of the most important moments, conversations, movements, and communities. By using hashtags, people around the world have made Twitter their microphone, shaped our culture and changed the world.

In Canada, we use hashtags to talk about what’s happening in our own backyards… which is often rain, sleet and snow. Weather hashtags such as #abstorm are used by Canadian as a quick, easy source of weather action and reactions--one of Canada’s favourite topics on and offline.

Hashtags have also mobilized many key Indigenous conversations on Twitter, raising awareness and sparking conversations that need to be had. One example is #MMIWG (missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls), a hashtag that has become widely used by community members, law enforcement and others in search of information, insights and action.

Hashtags are able to connect conversations across Canada’s rural communities. #AgTwitter is one such example, used to share content and discuss matters of interest to those working in farming and agriculture. This hashtag is often paired with secondary hashtags that give additional resonance to regions (example: #MBAg = Agriculture in Manitoba) and seasons (example: #Harvest19 = the 2019 harvest season). It’s a robust conversation that might otherwise be unknown for those living in major cities across Canada. 

Here is a snapshot of some of the key hashtags that Canadians have used and engaged most often in 2019. This is based on data gathered for all Tweets sent by Canadians between January 1, 2019 and July 31, 2019.

These are the five most used “Made in Canada” hashtags by Canadians so far in 2019. 

1. #BellLetsTalk
2. #cdnpoli
3. #WeTheNorth
4. #Toronto
5. #onpoli

During the same span, these were the most used Twitter hashtags by Canadians by category

• Gaming - #Fortnite
• Holidays - #CanadaDay
• Movies - #AvengersEndGame
• Music - #BTS
• Politics - #cdnpoli
• Television - #GameOfThrones
• Sports - #WeTheNorth

Follow @TwitterCanada and joining the #HashtagDay conversation. We’d love to hear about your must-follow hashtags on Twitter.