Let's face it, Twitter is a mess. But if you want to know something about some particular topic, then turn to the all-powerful "hashtag."

What is "hashtagging?" It's the practice of placing a number sign before a term. For example searching Twitter for #CHS will get you loads of tweets about Charleston. Go on, try it out.

Here are more active hashtags

Read more stories on this subject in our Twitter topic page.#CHSBRKG: For breaking news.
#CHSNEWS: News.
#CHSTRFC: Traffic.
#CHSEATS: Food and drink.
#CHSBEER: Beer.
#CHSWX: Weather.
#CHSBIZ: Business.
#CHSFUN: Fun things.
#CHSGREEN: Environment.
#CHSPICS: Pictures and photographs. 
#CHSJOBS: Jobs.
#CHSWS: Water sports.

Recently proposed tags

#CHSNP: Nonprofits.
#CHSPETS: Pets.
#CHSSURF: Surfing.

And a few inactive ones

#CHSSPTS: Sports.
#CHSDEAL: For deals and cheap things.
#CHSKIDS: All about kids.
#CHSCOOL: For interesting things.

An example use would be if you're about to leave to head to Columbia, you could search for tweets with "#CHSTRFC" and might discover that traffic is bad. If you'd like to learn more about why folks use these, Dan Conover details the argument for adoption and its specifics in great detail.

Updated September 29 throughout.