Hi guys, just signed up here.

I was involved in the adoption of Hashtags in the NRL. As you can see we had some very successful games:






Towards the end of the season almost every game would trend #1 in Australia. The most amazing thing was that this was born completely from the NRL Twitter community. The NRL is more involved this year so it can only get bigger.

The main reasoning behind match specific hashtags is that it presents a live stream which can be very handy for someone who can't get any other form of commentary. #RugbyLeague would not trend due to it's high use already (has already been said). The amount of people who were asking what #NRL....... meant, was incredible. As fans of the Greatest Game of All we have the ability and the duty to give something back.

Wait till the games expands to Wansford and Kerroogaroo (Isle of Man)

#WanKer ?

Great post, I hope you don't mind but I've posted this elsewhere. There is a great deal of scepticism around using these hashtags. From what I remembered you had some of this scepticism too but it has disappeared.

The thing that most annoys me about over here is that it was a very grassroots campaign that was doing incredibly well getting clubs, fans and media onside and far from bolstering it, the RFL set it back considerably. On the eve of the Grand Final they decided to release their own opposing hashtag which created considerable confusion. This took the wind out of the campaign as people decided to use neither. There hasn't been the same enthusiasm this time round or the same drive from people to push it.

How about our game threads use the titles #SLwidwak? We can do our bit!

Quote Conorgiantsfan="Conorgiantsfan"How about our game threads use the titles #SLwidwak? We can do our bit!'" Yep, they are already doing this on TotalRL and League Express are adding them to their games. As an aside, the most common complaint about the hashtags is that we should just use #rugbyleague instead. I've wrote a blog explaining why the hashtags are a better way to go. It just makes it easier to direct to if somebody is complaining on twitter, instead of having to explain why. maxdecimus13.blogspot.com/2012/0 ... htags.html

Quote Conorgiantsfan="Conorgiantsfan"How about our game threads use the titles #SLwidwak? We can do our bit!'" Yep, they are already doing this on TotalRL and League Express are adding them to their games. As an aside, the most common complaint about the hashtags is that we should just use #rugbyleague instead. I've wrote a blog explaining why the hashtags are a better way to go. It just makes it easier to direct to if somebody is complaining on twitter, instead of having to explain why. maxdecimus13.blogspot.com/2012/0 ... htags.html

Well, I'll certainly start every game topic with the hashtag from now on.

This attitude certainly makes a change.

You sure you're a Rugby League fan?

Given that, your suggestion that Phil Clarke reads them out takes on even more relevance.

Brilliant.

I can imagine it now, '43% of the tweets in the last 7 minutes have been about Wigan and in that time Bradford haven't scored. I think Wigan are using that fan power against Bradford.'

In a game Wigan aren't playing in.

No problems. We had a number of people trying to hijack the work we had already done. Attempting to push variations and just trying to be difficult. It takes alot to get people motivated to actually tag, they usually just dismiss it as pointless. But the exposure it brings to the game is priceless (and free).