Watching network TV for the last two years,

a question has been irking me: Do people actually use the hashtags that TV shows tell them to.

Tonight I’m watching replays of the summer games that were aired earlier today and CTV (the Canadian broadcaster of the Olympics) is promoting #CTVOlympics as the hashtag they’d like Canadians to use.

So to relieve my “irk”, let’s take a look at actual usage over time of #CTVOlympics

Not too shabby CTV. There are so many people tweeting your hashtag, you can’t even read their names.

Now let’s look at what Canadians are actually talking about while using that hashtag

Judging by nearly all the words seen above, the conversations are real and about up to date news about the Olympics.

Now just for fun, let’s compare that to activity for something that I would ordinarily be irked by… The hashtag activity for Burn Notice (The greatest buddy cop meets spy show meets Miami Vice TV show ever made)

And yeah… I’m no longer irked… People actually use these hashtags.