The evolution of business-to-business (B2B) advertising has changed over the decades. Previously, businesses would spread the word about their services by sharing business cards, postcards, mail brochures, newspaper classified ads, online classifieds, full-color magazine ads and pay for booths at in-person company conventions. But with the founding of Twitter by Jack Dorsey , Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams came the introduction of a new way for companies to network via digital marketing . It’s largely credited to a product designer named Chris Messina in Silicon Valley. His idea? Hashtags. Why Were Hashtags First Used? Messina observed how Internet chat rooms were using the pound (#) symbol and thought it would be useful for a “group organizing framework.” Although his 2007 idea was originally dismissed as “nerdy” and others were convinced it wouldn’t catch on, clearly Messina was right in the long run. By 2009, Twitter was using hashtags. In 2012, hashtags became popularly...