Hashtags are meant to identify trending topics on Twitter.
If Twitter’s own findings are to be believed, then tweets containing one or more hashtags are 55 percent more likely to be retweeted compared to those that don’t include any.
Twitter hashtags are not only useful for monitoring the trending stories related to your business, they can help you generate new engagements by amplifying your reach beyond your own followers.
When you add a relevant hashtag to your tweet, you are exposing that message to all those following this particular trend.
It allows you to be part of their conversation, which can result in building new relationships.
Hashtags are an integral part of the marketing strategy for the majority of successful social media marketers.
If you are yet to explore this avenue, then it is the right time to tap in the huge marketing potential of Twitter hashtags.
But for you to take advantage of this amazing feature, first you need to identify those that are relevant to your business.
Four Ways to Identify Popular Hashtags on Twitter
Do you know how to identify popular Twitter hashtags?
Discussed below are four proven ways to find trending topics on Twitter that people in your niche are actually discussing about.
The Twitter Native Tailored Trends
Let’s start with Twitter’s very own feature—Tailored Trends.
This is a personalized feature Twitter offers to every individual user.
Under the Tailored Trends section, you can find a list of popular topics which are suggested by an algorithm based on your preference, location, and followers.
You can further drill down to specific geographic location to find the local events and discussions about any particular trend.
To view trends in a different location, you just need to go to the advanced search option and select a new location.
Being a native application that has access to the Twitter distributed database systems, the Tailored Trends are by far the most accurate hashtag research tool you can use for free.
The only drawback of using Tailored Trends is it is limited to the top 10 trending list.
If you are looking for more, you need to use a third-party tool.
Hashtagify.me
Hashtagify.me addresses the major shortcoming of Tailored Trends—or the limit on number of hashtags.
You can make use of the top 10 trending list from Tailored Trends to find more hashtags that are related to the original ones.
Hashtagify.me provides you 10 popular hashtags for a particular keyword.
So for each of the original hashtag, you get 10 new ones, taking the overall count of relevant hashtags to 100 (10×10).
TrendsMap
TrendsMap is an altogether different tool.
It won’t suggest new topics, but you can visualize the use of already identified hashtags on a world map.
You can view the trending topics by continent, country or city, thus helping you find the most popular hashtags that are currently trending at a location of your interest.
It’s an amazing tool, especially for the local businesses, to keep up with the current local market trends.
If local trends are important for your business, TrendsMap is the most practical tool you can use to your advantage.
TagBoard
TagBoard is unique in the sense that it offers you a platform to collaborate hashtags across an array of social media websites.
This tool organizes all conversations happening across the web on a particular hashtag.
Once you have identified a hashtag relevant to your business, you can find out a list of all related discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google Plus about that particular topic.
It is a great tool to amplify your reach on social media in general and attract potential leads for your business from different platforms.
Final Words
Once you have identified the list of tending hashtags relevant to your industry, you can include them in your tweets to reach out to a wider base of users.
They can also provide you with new topic ideas for your business website.
You can come up with engaging content targeted towards the popular trends to boost your traffic and conversion.
What tools do you use to find trending hashtags?
I’ll be interested in playing around with some of these. Thx for the recommendations!
Thank you, Paula. I’m glad you liked the post.
Genius!! Thanks for the great information!
Thanks!
Jack, I’ll admit I didn’t know about Hashtagify.me. Now I have no excuse when Corina says, “Why don’t you use more hashtags in your tweets?” Because I hate them? Because I am too lazy to find the right ones? Now I can’t use those excuses. I don’t know if I should kiss you or punch you.
Hey Gini, I’m sorry for closing all your escape doors, but as they say, “In any moment of tweet, the best thing you can do is choose the right hashtags, the next best thing is choosing the wrong hashtags, and the worst thing you can do is using no hashtags”. By the way, I’ve got plenty of people to punch me for free, I’m okay with the other choice 😉
Woo hoo! Thank you, Jack!
All escape doors have been closed! ?
Hahahaha!
Our plan worked! 🙂
LOL!
I love that “moment of tweet” quote and just shared it with my Weaving Influence team!
ohhhh! I loooove TrendsMap! Talking to a client today that would be perfect for! I actually didn’t know about several of these. Can’t wait to play!
I haven’t used TrendsMap in a while. Thank you for reminding me, Jack.
I like to try different tools to see which serves best for my purposes. I used Topsy a lot when it was “alive.” Hashtagify.me, Rite Tag, Buzz Sumo and Keyhole.co are among my favorites.
Thanks, Corina. That’s how it should work, learn – try it – share it – repeat!
Oh i so miss Topsy!