There are now 2.22 billion active accounts on social media – that amounts to almost one-third of the human population. Due to this phenomenon, the function of hashtags is becoming more important to keep up with the growing buzz of conversations. Hashtags are one of the key tools to discover relevant content and discussion in the ocean of information online.
Here are some tools and strategies that will ensure your Twitter hashtags will work the way you know they can.
Twitonomy: Look for hashtags used by influencers.
Ideally, your use of hashtag will position your content, or whatever you want to say, in a lively discussion of a particular subject. One tactic is to look to the top of your topic of choice. There are influential gurus, thought leaders and celebrities whose output on social media is often a force that directs the overall discussion on a particular topic.
A great tool for measuring which hashtags the influencers are using is Twitonomy. When you search for a particular Twitter user, the tool will generate a host of statistics relating to that user’s activity, including hashtags. The visual nature of the tool makes it simple to uncover which hashtags are being used by influencers. The hashtags they’re using are likely to be fashionable for the wider audience. Apart from uncovering popular hashtags, Twitonomy’s speedy but detailed analysis of Twitter users is great for measuring the overall activity of those with a high social authority.
RiteTag: Analyse your prospect hashtags.
Using Twitonomy, you’re able to analyse the influential figures and compile a list of hashtags that are likely to be adopted as a signal for discussion in your industry. But keep this in mind: there are some influential people with millions of followers on Twitter whose content shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
If you want to confirm if the hashtags you’ve uncovered are going to be relevant and valuable to your audience, check out RiteTag. Whether you install its chrome extension or sign in to its website via Twitter, RiteTag will give you a colour-coded rating to your prospect hashtags.
RiteTag has four legends for hashtags:
- Hot now hashtags (colour green in the image above) are the ideal, trending hashtags used by the right amount of users. Using this hashtag will give your tweets a high chance of being discovered soon.
- Long life hashtags (colour blue in the image above) are the hashtags used by limited numbers of users. Using this hashtag can probably help your tweets be discovered over the long term.
- Overused hashtags are, of course, hashtags that are too popular. Using this hashtag will only get your tweets buried in search results very quickly.
- Underused hashtags, as the name suggests, are hashtags followed by only a few people.
Tweriod: Discover when your hashtags will buzz.
Using Tweriod, you can analyse your Twitter followers’ activity and find out when they’re most active. This knowledge is vital, as it will enable you to post at times that will give your tweets the maximum amount of exposure. The tool offers a free analysis of your profile and a convenient breakdown of your followers’ activity on certain days and which times are optimum for posting relative to that activity.
Hashtagify: Keep digging for related tags.
For every hashtag you use, there’s an extended family of related content surrounding it — that’s when Hashtagify enters the scene. When you search for one of your primary hashtags, Hashtagify will visually list other related tags. You can use those tags in researching other content your audience is ‘hashtagging’ and establishing discussions you might be able to contribute to.
Use these tools and strategies to help unleash the potential of your hashtags and give them a rousing speech on Twitter.
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