Hashtags were originally created to categorize conversations. Look up a keyword with the “#” symbol in front and boom you have a million tweets/images/posts about that specific topic. It is a revolutionary tool; one of the first of many strides the internet took to save us time.
Hashtags are great tools to spread information and find people with similar interests. Hashtags like #motivationmonday and #throwbackthursday were popular among communities and added a personal flare to social media. However, how do hashtags reflect in the business world, and more specifically in the Content Carnivores empire? We use hashtags to ensure that our targeted audience sees our tweets. ‘
To break it down, Twitter has over 328 million active users. It’s not possible for every single user to see every tweet posted. Hashtags come into play and make it easier and more accessible for users to find information that they need; it categorizes their needs and delivers the topics they want to discover. Sure, you can follow people with similar interests but hashtags bring you to the direct answers/information.
From being original twitter users, Carnivores has been playing the hashtag game for quite some time. We have specific tags we use in our tweets to target our audiences and to grow our networks and outreach. However, we are constantly refining our practice. Recently, we have been researching hashtag tools that generate the most popular tags given the topic. Let’s review a few of these programs.
Hashtagify: This tool will show you the top ten tags based on the hashtag you are targeting. It shows the popularity, monthly trend, weekly trend of the tag, top languages used with the tag, top countries where the keyword is used, and the different variations of spelling. It will also show you who else is using these hashtags and if they are posting relevant content. This is useful information because it gives a clear representation of who is using the hashtag and who/where the audience is. This is a simple plug-in method that gets the job done in a timely manner.
Ritetag: This tool helps to find new hashtags while keeping tabs of the current hashtags you use. Similar to Hashtagify, you type in the hashtag you are planning on using. A list is displayed showing relevant tags that are currently being used on Twitter. It shows real-time stats regarding what hashtags to use now, what hashtags to use to get seen over time, and what hashtags to not use. The specific stats show how many tweets have used that specific tag, how many retweets the tweet got, and how many impressions or people viewed the tweet. This seems like a useful tool because it gives several options and real data to back the hashtags potential popularity. This application also has a chrome extension that lets you highlight text or right-click an image and it suggests hashtags on the spot. This would be very useful for Carnivores. Doing more research, I read that it integrates with Buffer which is a social media management tool we use.
Both of these tools get the job done in the hashtag field. However, for the purpose of Carnivores, I am leaning towards Ritetag as the most useful tool. The real-time statistics, chrome extension, and other integrations bring it over the top. We have a wide clientele, so the more tools we can use to get content out on social media the better. Hashtags make our lives easier. They make the world feel a little smaller and close-knit.