I have written often in the past year about Windows XP and Office 2003 reaching their end of support/life. Below are links to the the most popular blog posts about the end of support for Windows XP and Office 2003.

• RIP Windows XP, Update for Windows 8.1 Coming
• Put a Plan in Place Now to Upgrade From Windows XP
• Upgrade Before Microsoft Office 2003 Support Ends in April 2014

If you are still using Windows XP or Microsoft Office 2003, you need to upgrade! This is not some grand conspiracy to get you to spend money, you are using ancient insecure software.

Of course I also promote the blog posts I’ve written on various social media platforms, including Twitter. This promotion exposes me to new readers, but I also hope it educates more people on whatever subject is covered in the blog. Sometimes you just never know who may see your post until you hear from them. That is exactly what happened when I got a recent tweet directly from the @Windows account at Microsoft (embedded below). Pretty cool since they have well over four million Twitter followers.

@fostercoburn Thank you for helping share the news about the Windows XP end of support.

— Windows (@Windows) June 25, 2014

I’m pretty excited the folks at Microsoft (Windows) saw my tweet. How did it get onto their radar? Most likely because I included the hashtag #Windows in my tweet. Anyone who searched for that specific hashtag would have seen my tweet as well as any others including that hashtag. I covered the use of hashtags in more depth in Use #Hashtags in Social Media to Increase Exposure.

So if you are wanting your messages to reach a wider audience, make sure to include appropriate hashtags and you may be surprised who reads your posts!