Welcome to the Friday Five – be sure to check out past posts in this ongoing series.

If you’re new to Twitter, you may be wondering why certain words in many Tweets begin with a hashtag (#). This is a system of organizing, grouping and tracking Tweets that started back in 2007. You can read all about it on the Twitter Fan Wiki. My take on hashtags is that they allow you to watch only the Twitterstream for a particular topic or theme, uninterrupted, without any of the constant distractions and clutter that can be ever-present on Twitter.

A recent update to the hashtag phenomenon is a hand sign (or gang sign, to those in the know) attributable either to Brian Solis or Robert Scoble. At the SXSW conference this year, this hand sign was all the rage with the digerati and was even featured in a clever game of SXSW bingo.

So why should you care about hashtags? Because they’re the best way to track conversation threads across Twitter. By using Summize (aka Twitter Search) and monitoring for particular hashtags, you can parse and group Tweets about a particular subject for easy monitoring or to follow along with a live event or real-time conversation. Most social media events have a pre-assigned hashtag – #SXSW being an obvious example – so it’s easy to follow the conversation stream as people Tweet live from the scene of the action.

So what are the hottest hashtags right now? In past posts I’ve blogged about #journchat, which heats up Twitter on Monday nights for PR folks and journalists. Now, here’s my guide to five other popular hashtags and how best to follow along.

1. Hot hashtags for PR pros: I keep a Summize screen open all day tuned to “#pradvice OR #PR” in order to follow Tweets tagged specifically for PR pros. This is a great way to find smart PR people to follow or find out what topics or blog posts are popular at the moment. 

2. Hot hashtags for healthcare: There appears to be a sudden influx of hospital and other health industry folks on Twitter right now, many of whom are tagging Tweets with “#healthcare OR#hcsm OR #hcmktg.” Those are all good tags to watch – and you can watch all three simultaneously using that link.

3. Hot hashtags for women in tech: This week I noticed both Ada Lovelace Day” and hashtag #ALD09 were trending on Twitter. After a quick visit to the Tweetstream on Summize, I found the Finding Ada blog which explained it all: Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. It was great to see women on Twitter and in blogs around the world extolling the successes of women in tech. Now I know for next year – March 24, 2010 I definitely plan to blog about my favorite unsung woman in tech.

4. Hot hashtags for social media info: Another screen I leave up all day is Summize tuned to “#smbiz OR #socialmedia OR social media OR #scrm” to keep up with the latest social media news, trends, links and blog posts shared via Twitter. It’s hard to stay on top of everything, but this and other shortcuts (like checking Delicious for what’s popular in social media) can go a long way to keeping you informed.

5 – Hottest hashtag of all for you: This may not require a hashtag at all, according to blogger Matt Browne who claimed last summer that hashtag use is dying. I think time has proven him wrong – more people are using hashtags than ever before, and there’s now a nice reference site that catalogs them all – but he makes a good point. The best search term or keyword for you to search on may still be hashtag-less. Just search on your hottest industry keyword or buzz phrase – whatever search term matters most to you or your business. This could even be your own Twitter @ name, so you never miss a Tweet that mentions you. Or, it could be your company or brand name, a competitor or a hot industry issue or trend.

Ultimately, it makes sense to keep a Summize screen open and rotate through your top keywords and hashtags throughout the day to ensure you never miss an important Tweet.

What are some other hot hashtags I’ve missed? Let me know which ones you’re tracking.

1. Personal branding vs. The Community (aka Jason Falls vs. Geoff Livingston). On Thursday of this week, I caught sight of these two well-respected social media gurus duking it out on Twitter over a commonly discussed topic in social media - that of the individual vs. the whole. As a longtime reader of both blogs, I was well aware of the differences in opinion between Jason and Geoff on the topic of personal branding – Geoff in particular seems to have a real aversion for that phrase and phenomenon – but it was still intriguing to ”listen” to their at-times heated debate on Twitter. I even checked in with them both to confirm that it was a friendly debate (they reassured me) and to ask permission to share their spirited sparring here (they said go for it). The conversation is well worth a read. Where do you fall on the topic of personal brand? I’m probably closer to Jason’s view than I am to Geoff’s, though I can certainly see both sides. In fact, I like Todd Defren’s take on personal branding best: it’s essential for any PR professional these days.

2. Who Owns Social Media? (aka PR vs. Marketing vs. Advertising vs. Interactive). This is one argument that you really can’t win because there are good points on all sides. Ultimately, it comes down to who’s doing social media well, who’s measuring it, and who’s showing great results. I don’t think it’s hard to figure out where I fall in this debate – social public relations FTW – and I’m proud to see so many amazing, smart PR people leading the way in social media. Even Charlene Li, whose fantastic Altimeter Group Wiki is shaping up to be a top resource for social media pros of all stripes, includes a special section for social media PR firms. The jury’s still out on this debate but I think as time goes by, we’ll see PR continuing to take the lead on social. After all, it’s all about relationships.

3. Paid Posts vs. Purists. I’ve posted about this topic before, but it continues to be a hot one in the blogosphere. I envision the WalMart ElevenMoms on one side, with their prolific giveaways and sponsored posts, and the true purists on the other side refusing to even take part in a free cupcake tasting. It’s a big, wide, social world out there – good thing there’s room for us all.

4. Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer. It’s hard to imagine anyone who didn’t hear about the great Daily Show smackdown this week of CNBC’s Jim Cramer by the victorious Jon Stewart. The battle may have started on late night cable TV, but it continues to play on in social media. Jon Stewart was a trending topic on Twitter for days and Twendz, the new Twitter sentiment measurement tool released this week by Waggener Edstrom, even featured Stewart vs. Cramer on the front page at launch. Poor Cramer… did he ever even have a chance?

5. Rick Liebling’s March Marketing/Social Media Madness. Clever writing, great bloggers and a posse of social media rockstars form the basis of this March Madness-style virtual competition. There’s not much to debate here, since all of the bloggers included are worthy of big wins, but it’s a fun rivalry to watch nonetheless. Check out the follow-up posts on Eyecube and we’ll see who ends up the big winner.

That’s the Friday Five for this week. Be sure to catch up on the rest of the series. Do you have a strong opinion or two on any of the rivalries above? What would you like to see in future editions of the Friday Five?

Oh, and TGIF!

1. WordCamp Columbus – May 16. Hosted at Columbus State Community College, WordCamp is a full day of keynotes, breakout sessions and networking focused around the popular blogging platform. I’m really looking forward to this event as I’m a WordPress girl myself.
2. PodCamp Ohio - June 20. I attended this day-long ”UnConference” last year and learned a ton about blogging, social networks, podcasting and new media from local and national social media pros. This year it will be at the Ohio State University’s Mendenhall Laboratory and it’s sure to be another stellar event attracting attendees from all across Ohio and beyond.
3. Ohio Growth Summit 2009 – June 10.  Longtime readers of this blog know that I’m a huge fan of Chris Brogan‘s work in the social media space. In the immortal words of Lewis Howes, Chris Brogan is a social media mutant! Now he’s coming to Columbus to speak thanks to the Ohio SBDC. I’ll be the one in the front row with a huge grin on my face.
4. Spring Informal at MoJoe Lounge – March 25. Last night I got a nice email invitation to an event that’s being billed as the “Who’s Who in Columbus Social Media” – an exclusive gathering of our city’s brightest and most influential people in the social media arena. The email gushed ”Needless to say, your name was on the short list of bloggers that are making an impact in the vibrantly growing tech scene in the Midwest!” And honestly, what blogger could resist that kind of flattery? I sure can’t, so I’ll be there. You nailed it, MoJoe Lounge.
5. Katie Paine at PRSA Central Ohio - date TBD. This one’s not final or official yet, and I honestly can’t remember if I heard about it at a PRSA board meeting or in the hallowed halls of the midwest’s top PR firm. Either way, I may be in big trouble for scooping it here – but it’s exciting news. Katie Paine is huge – she’s considered THE authority on social media and PR measurement. Watch this space and Central Ohio PRSA for more.

With all these great social media happenings flowing our way this spring and summer, why would anyone leave Columbus? Happy Friday – and be sure to catch up on the rest of my Friday Five series on social media and PR.

Blogs and books are great, but sometimes you really need to get away from the daily routine and immerse yourself in learning. With that in mind, here’s my ultimate wish list of social media conferences for communicators this year. I’ve researched and detailed the costs, key speakers and location for each so that you can make smart decisions in these tough economic times.

1. Online Media Boot Camp – April 9 in King of Prussia, PA – $349 plus hotel/travel (1 day). This conference has a lot packed into just one day so it’s reasonably priced, easy to get to and won’t take a lot of time – basically, there’s no reason not to go. Plus, Mack Collier is speaking and he has a cool social media contest going right now so you can win a free ticket. Hey, you never know. Go for it! And either way, follow the brilliance using the #OMBC hashtag here.
2. Inbound Marketing Summit (formerly New Marketing Summit) – either San Franciso in April, Dallas in May or Boston in September – $695 plus hotel/travel (2 days). This is a Chris Brogan joint, so it’s pretty much The One Social Media Event to Rule Them All. Even the conference website is cool, detailing the big names behind the summit and listing their blogs and Twitter info so you can follow them. Wish I could go, but I’m following them all (blogs and Twitter) so I’ll be able to catch some of the flow.
3. Social Media for Communicators – Las Vegas in March – $995 plus hotel/travel (3 days). This is the annual Ragan Communications event and it’s in Vegas, baby, Vegas. Peter Shankman, Forrester’s Josh Bernoff and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh are all speaking. Can’t swing the pricetag or time commitment for this one? Follow all the speakers on Twitter and read their blogs – you’ll still get great content without the neon-and-cigarette-smoke induced headaches of Vegas. Also, watch the live #socmedlv Twitter stream here.
4. New Communications Forum – co-located with the San Francisco Inbound Marketing Summit in April (remember what I said above about “The One Event”?!) - $795 plus hotel/travel (2 days). This event features an incredible line-up and is extremely well respected in the industry. I’ll be watching for the #NCF hashtag on Twitter and doing my best to follow along.
5. Digital Impact Conference - April in NYC – $799 plus hotel/travel (2 days). This is PRSA’s event and the one event on this list I’ll actually be attending live and in person. I’m looking forward to hearing Brian Solis speak again, as well as PR rockstar Sarah Evans and SEO guru Lee Odden. I will blog and tweet from the conference so you’ll feel like you got to go too. And, it’s my birthday weekend so not a bad time to be back in my old stomping ground, the Big Apple.

What do you think – is this your social media event wishlist too, or are there others you’d rather attend? Will you be attending any social media conferences in 2009?

1.  TopicHawk. Just as Twitter answers the question “What are you doing?”, monitoring post TopicHawk answers the question “Right now, people are talking about…” Just plug in any keyword and up pops a steady stream of real-time findings which may include mentions from Twitter, Technorati, Friendfeed, Google News, Yahoo News, Wikipedia and more. TopicHawk also shows you what hot topics and keywords are currently trending on Twitter and Google. Here’s an example – just for fun, I put in the keywords “Lost TV” to see what it would bring back about ABC’s Lost. Imagine the impact of having this on your big screen, with your client’s brand as the keyword entered, next time they stop in for a meeting.

2. Spy. Not unlike TwitterHawk, Spy is another way to quickly and easily see conversations in social media based on keywords you enter. Early adopter Louis Gray enthused about Spy, calling it an interesting offering that offers the ability to watch not just Twitter, but also blog posts, Google Reader shares and FriendFeed. At a September social media club breakfast, Best Buy showed off Spy as a way to demonstrate how the company engages in social media. I plugged in another TV show, American Idol, to see what Spy would bring back. It’s pretty entertaining to sit back and watch the conversation flow.

3. Addictomatic. This is a fun, user-friendly little site which allows you to set up a social media listening dashboard for instant access to all the online buzz on a particular topic or keyword. Addictomatic‘s tagline is “Inhale the web” and that’s exactly what it allows you to do. Some time ago, I set up a vanity page on myself and now I visit it every once in a while to be sure everything is as it should be. This is something I recommend as part of a personal online reputation management strategy, and certainly it makes sense for companies or brands to have their own Addictomatic pages as well.

4. TwitterFountain. A widget rather than a site, TwitterFountain mashes up Twitter and Flickr search results into a visually pleasing flow on your blog or social network profile page. It’s a little quirky and was created in the Netherlands so you may see some Dutch words pop up here and there, but I think it’s pretty fun. You can see the TwitterFountain widget in action on my PRopenMic page. It’s a bit orange, but I’m sure you can tweak the color if you’re just a little more tech savvy than I am.

5. NetVibes Listening Post. This one requires a special thank you to my colleague Dave Chlastosz, aka the King of NetVibes. I knew about NetVibes but had never spent time with it until I saw what Dave had done with it for a client. It blew my mind. It’s like one-stop shopping for all your social media needs, including blogs, widgets, RSS feeds and more. The thing about NetVibes is that you do need to spend some time – probably a couple of hours – setting it up the way you want it. Once you have it set up though, NetVibes is a thing of beauty and a real time-saver. Here’s a link to mine which is a work in progress. I continue to add blogs, create new category tabs, find new widgets and move things around.

There you have it – my five favorite social monitoring tools with a cool visual twist. I hope you found something new to work or play with.

Now, what have I missed – what else belongs on this list? And what would you like me to cover in my next Friday Five?

Today marks the first entry in my new series, the Friday Five – a weekly collection of my favorite new or cool web2.0 tools, tips and tricks. It’s named after one of the best times of the week – 5 p.m. every Friday.

It’s bitterly cold outside and the economy is still tanking, but there are always things to get excited about in the wonderful world of social media. Here’s this week’s round-up.

1. The hashtag #SolisOH. This week, Silicon Valley PR2.0 guru Brian Solis visited chilly Columbus, Ohio to share insights from his latest book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. It was great to meet Brian, hear him speak and join a room full of my friends, colleagues and fellow Central Ohio PRSA members live-Tweeting the highlights from his presentation. You can read the collective notes via the Tweetstream. There were some great nuggets of info and I’m looking forward to diving into my new (and autographed, I might add) book. Big thanks to Brian for sharing his expertise with Columbus and taking some great photos of our town while he was here.

2. HootSuite. Formerly known as BrightKit, HootSuite is my favorite Twitter tool for managing and measuring multiple accounts simultaneously. The dashboard is simple to use and it even allows you to queue up Tweets to be sent at a later time or date specified by you. This would be great for anyone planning a vacation but still wanting to keep a Twitter account active and interesting. Plus, with a name like HootSuite, it’s got to be good, right?

3. Popular Delicious bookmarks. At any moment in time, people are saving articles, links and sites to Delicious and tagging them for easy recall and reference later. But how do you find what’s most popular in your niche? Visit http://delicious.com/popular/socialmedia only instead of social media, that last word should be whatever keyword floats your boat. For me, it’s either socialmedia or PR or some combination thereof - like PR2.0. Experiment with different keywords and you’ll be amazed at what you may find. Recently a visiting PR student asked me how I stay on top of what’s new in the world of social media and web2.0. This little Delicious “what’s popular” trick is one of my secret weapons – so Callie, now you know too.

4. Backtype. If you’re active as a blog commenter and conversator (and I hope you are), it can be hard to remember everywhere you’ve traveled and commented in the blogosphere. Now, there’s a tool that allows you to keep track of all your comments – or even the blog comments of other bloggers whose thoughts and insights you value. Backtype allows you to “claim” your comments so that they can be discovered, followed and shared. It also allows you to subscribe to the blog comments of other Backtype users, which can be a great way to find out which blogs your favorite bloggers read. You can use the service to monitor blog comments for a particular keyword. And, as someone who manages a team of bloggers, it helps me keep track of who is out there commenting and promoting our Fahlgren Mortine blog.

5. The phenomenon known as #Journchat. If you’re in PR or the media business, you should know about the Monday night Twitter events known as #Journchat. You can follow the Tweetstream here, visit the blog for recaps here or check out the Facebook group here. The brainchild of PR rockstar Sarah Evans, #Journchat has to be experienced to be believed – it’s a fantastic ongoing weekly conversation between PR pros and journalists with the goal of making all our jobs just a little easier. It’s a great way to find smart people to follow on Twitter, learn how to work better with “the dark side” (which side that is varies according to your perspective, of course) and maybe even pitch a story or find a great new source. If you’re not doing anything Monday nights at 8 p.m. EST, I highly recommend you head to Twitter and join the conversation.

So, that’s my first edition of the Friday Five. What do you think? Let me know if you found this useful. In the meantime, I’ll start collecting more shiny new tools and toys to share with you next week.