How To Find Great Hashtags To Market Your Business

Table of Contents

Using hashtags to market your business on social media is one of the quickest and easiest ways to expand your influence beyond your current pool of followers.

Hashtags_to_market

When you use relevant hashtags (#) in your social media posts, people who are searching for those keywords can find your tweets and posts, and can potentially follow you.

Unfortunately, if you use the WRONG hashtags, your marketing won’t be nearly as effective. This post will outline some of the ways you can research and discover relevant hashtags that people in your niche are actually looking for.

1. Find out what hashtags influencers are using

Influencers in your niche are already using a bunch of hashtags that are both popular and highly relevant to your audience.

There are a couple of ways you can find these hashtags.

Start by going to Instagram and Twitter and simply scan through influencer posts to see which hashtags they’re using.

On Instagram, here’s an easy way to do this…this is especially useful if you don’t already follow many influencers in your field.

In the search bar, type in a generic keyword related to your niche. For instance, I might type in “marketing”.

Under Tags, click on a hashtag to reveal the most popular posts that use that hashtag. Now scroll through those posts and see what OTHER hashtags those influencers use.

This is a great way to scout out very relevant, but still popular and effective hashtags!

Another way to find hashtags influencers are using is with a tool like Hashtagify.me.

Simply type in a keyword or hashtag, and get a list of top influencers who use that hashtag. You can even sort influencers by how influential they are, their specialization, and their number of followers!

2. Find trending hashtags in your niche

As part of your social media strategy, you will definitely want to identify which topics are trending, both in general and in your industry.

To find general trending hashtags, RiteTag is a fantastic tool.

Simply go to their Hashtag Search page and see a full list of the most popular and trending hashtags currently in use.

Want more info on a particular hashtag? Click on View Stats to see hourly statistics, usage graphs and more.

Another great tool for this is Hashtagify.me (again!).

The beauty of this tool is that you can search for trending hashtags in your niche.

 

Simply type in a particular hashtag, and find out exactly how popular it is – in general, recently, in the past month and in the past week.

And want to find more popular related hashtags? Scroll down the page to see the most popular related hashtags in an easy-to-understand visual format.

3. Find relevant cross-platform hashtags

Many tools make it difficult to find out which hashtags are popular on individual platforms. And other tools are good ONLY for finding hashtags on a particular platform (e.g., on Twitter, Instagram, etc.).

Because Tagboard aggregates conversations happening across the web, it’s a great tool for finding hashtags that are popular and relevant across all platforms – and the best part is the tool shows you ACTUAL top posts that use that  hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

 

While Tagboard doesn’t provide a way to find new hashtags (you need to come in with an idea of which hashtags you want to search for), it will keep you in the loop in terms of what’s relevant in your niche across the whole social web – and this is invaluable.

And because you can see actual posts that use your chosen hashtag, you can easily scout out new and related hashtags…simply by seeing which OTHER hashtags are frequently used on these posts.

4. Find hashtags that help you meet specific goals

What if you want to find and use hashtags that will get your post seen right away? Or what if you want to find one that’s going to work well…but only on Instagram?

There’s a tool for that!

I already mentioned RiteTag above, but this is where it really shines. Type in a keyword and the tool will show you related hashtags broken down by:

  • Good only for Instagram
  • The Hashtags you can use to get seen now
  • Hashtags to get seen over time
  • And, the Hashtags you shouldn’t use…because they’re just not popular enough

It’s kind of like your own personal hashtag advisor!

5. Use Twitter’s tailored trends

Twitter Trends gives you a list of topics and hashtags based on a bunch of factors directly related to YOU, including your:

  • Location
  • Your interests
  • Who you follow

These factors, combined with which tweets are currently trending (not trending yesterday or last week), mean you see tweets that are extremely relevant and popular  – right now.

If you want to see more details on any specific topic or keyword, no problem. Simply click on it and you’ll see all the most recent tweets that use that word or hashtag.

Want to see more general trends…not just those based on your current location? This is easy to do – click on Change and then just adjust your location!

6. Use Hashtags.org to find trending hashtags and more

One of the most popular tools out there is Hashtags.org, and for good reason.

Enter a hashtag into the search box, and you’ll receive a wealth of information including:

  • The hashtag definition
  • A 24-hour hashtag trend graph
  • “Prolific users” of that hashtag
  • Recent tweets
  • Related hashtags

Since this post is about finding NEW hashtags though, I must mention that the ability to find related hashtags is limited to paid members. They do provide some related hashtags, but to see the full list you will need to upgrade your account.

Fortunately, even if you can’t invest in the paid version, the free version still gives you a great place to start!

 7. The low-tech option: brainstorming

These tools are all great, but don’t forget that YOU’RE the expert when it comes to your niche and audience!

Before you jump in and try out the tools above, I’d encourage you to take some time to sit down and brainstorm which keywords will be of interest to your audience.

Once you’ve come up with a list, you can plug them into the tools above to find related hashtags and to see how popular they really are!

I also recommend keeping a spreadsheet or digital file of some sort with your favorite and most effective hashtags. Sort them by topic, popularity, “trendiness” and effectiveness with YOUR audience (in terms of retweets, likes, etc.).

This way you have a detailed repository you can consult each time you post on social media – no more wondering which hashtag to use, and whether or not it will be effective!

Need more help with your hashtags? Check out my posts, How to Find Top Hashtags Using Hashtagify and Top Instagram Hashtags for Gaining New Followers.

 What other tools or strategies would you add to the list above? Share below!

About Author

Comment Via Facebook
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

20 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Carmen
Carmen
9 years ago

Great list! This is super helpful. I’ve never really done any research into hashtags before, I’ve just posted some and hoped for the best. Will be using this guide next time – thanks for sharing!

Kare Anderson
Kare Anderson
9 years ago

Kim, You continue to offer such pithy, relevant & actionable tips, including in this column. “Even” among the myriad social media experts, you stand out. As a newbie to this world of possibilities, I am so grateful to Sandra Zoratti for telling me about you. Clearly many seasoned social media mavens also turn to you

Kim Garst
Kim Garst
Reply to  Kare Anderson
9 years ago

Awwwh, soooo appreciate your kind words, Kare!

Venkatesh Iyer
Venkatesh Iyer
9 years ago

Thanks. One big issue for me has been ways to identify trending hashtags. I got some answers here.

Kim Garst
Kim Garst
9 years ago

Thanks for dropping in, Phillip and for the heads up on TweetChup…I will check it out!

Kim Garst
Kim Garst
9 years ago

Glad you picked up something that you can run with Yolanda!

Kim Garst
Kim Garst
9 years ago

Patricia, thanks for dropping in and glad you got some nuggets to run with 🙂

Roxann Souci
Roxann Souci
9 years ago

What a great collection of resources. Thank you so much!

John
John
9 years ago

This blog is just what me and my team have been looking for. Great post!

JJ Birden
JJ Birden
9 years ago

Thank you, Kim, this information was extremely healthy. I have not paid attention as to much to hash-tags in the pass but lately I totally see their value.

Corlie
Corlie
9 years ago

So useful! I usually just hash tag with whatever I think will work, this looks like a very effective way of actually reaching people. Its next week’s task all week to look at these articles! Thanks Kim.

Daveda
Daveda
9 years ago

I love this article! I’ll be using these tips this week to pinpoint hashtags for my book campaign! Thanks, Kim!

Kim Garst
Kim Garst
9 years ago

Find a few people, who know what you want to know and cut away the rest, Beverly 🙂

Kim Garst
Kim Garst
9 years ago

Trial and error, Clinton 🙂

Joe Fierro
Joe Fierro
9 years ago

Another GREAT read, Kim. Thank you!

Kim Garst
Kim Garst
8 years ago

Appreciate the lovely compliment!

Kathleen Lee
Kathleen Lee
8 years ago

Thanks for the incredibly useful information! There’s always something new to learn in social – appreciate you being ahead of the curve ;)!

Will
Will
6 years ago

Very useful tips here which can be used to help educate clients too. Thanks!

igrice
igrice
3 years ago

Hashtags is most important on twitter

Get FREE Access to 51 Mini Digital Product Ideas that people will line up to buy!
8K Shares
Share
Tweet
Pin
Reddit
Email
Buffer
Share