Today I promised I’d
give you some tips to help find relevant hashtags for your tweets. If you’re
not certain what a hashtag is, this post I wrote on connecting with twitter will help.
It’s important to use
hashtags when you tweet—but even more important to use them correctly. One big
thing you should avoid is using more than two or three hashtags per tweet.
Otherwise you run the risk of being mistaken for a sales person or a spammer.
If you’re tweeting about
a new subject, be sure to check the hashtags and pick ones that will correctly
target your audience. For example, I’m targeting military families with my new
book, Fighting Fear: Winning the War at Home When Your Soldier Leaves forBattle.
Since I don’t normally
receive tweets about military subjects I began to research the best hashtags
for my targeted audience. The first one I chose was #military. It sounded like
a good choice, but researching it I came up with a lot of tweets about the best
times to meet soldiers to get a date. Definitely NOT the audience I was looking
for! Next I tried #militaryFamily and that took me to tweets directed at the
people I wanted to reach.
I know your next question
is going to be, “Where does someone research hashtags?”
I have four sites I
recommend. All four are free resources and I don’t recommend one over the
others, because they’re all slightly different and I find myself using them in
different combinations.
The first is Hashtags.org. This site gives a list of trending
hashtags, a graph and a search box to type in potential hashtags. After typing
in a hashtag, it lists current tweets containing that hashtag.
Next is Trendistic.IndexTank.com. It also gives you a graph, along with a search
box. But it’s graph allows you to check the trends for the past 180 days.
Another I like is WhatTheTrend.com. Like the others, What the Trend has current trends, a
graph and a search box. I included it because it also explains why a particular
hashtag is trending.
Finally, I also visit Trendsmap.com regularly. This site has a map
that tells you what is trending where. This is particularly helpful if you’re
targeting a specific area.
Another way to track
hashtags is to find out the most popular keywords. To do this you need to check
out Google Ad Words.
Now it’s your turn. How
do you find the right hashtags? Also be sure to post any questions you have in
the comment section.
Don’t forget to join the
conversation!
Blessings,
Edie
