The hashtag phenomenon has reached Google+. The nice thing about hashtags on Google+ however is that when people click on a hashtag, they aren?t just shown a list of the most recent posts that contain that hashtag. Google+ displays a list of ?best of? posts with that hashtag.
What this means for doctors and dentists is that if your hashtag post becomes popular, whenever anyone clicks on that same hashtag in another person?s post, your post will rank near the top of the ?best of? hashtag search even if it?s a little older. This puts even more importance on spreading quality content rather than putting hashtags in front of everything just to jump on a bandwagon.
On Google+, hashtags are used more for categorizing posts, rather than exclusively for trending or funny topics. That makes it important for nearly every single post you make to have at least one hashtag to categorize it. Google+ will also display related hashtags based on the content of your post if you?d like (this can be adjusted under your settings).
Of course, hashtags can also be used for industry news and trending topics just like Twitter. For these types of posts, your goal will be to be near the top of the ?most recent? search results and hopefully the ?best of? as well. To do this, you should always be on the lookout for medical and health related news so that you can be in the loop. You can be a conversation starter, or present interesting insight into an already trending topic.
Hashtags are still fairly new on Google+, so they haven?t had the time to fully develop and popularize the way that they have on Twitter. But you can bet that they will become an integral part of the way content is shared in the future.
You should also make use of the +mention (where ?mention? is replaced with a user?s name) feature of Google+. This allows you to link to other Google+ members? profiles when you mention them in a post. When someone hovers over the +mention, the profile of that user pops up. It?s a nice way to build relationships and hopefully the person you mention will return the favor, giving you more exposure.