How do hashtags work?
What are hashtags? A hashtags is a word or phrase preceded by a number sign (#) and used to identify a message on a specific topic. For an example, the tweet about firemen rescuing 33 dogs from fires in one day uses this hashtag: #dogrescue.
If people are looking for news stories similar to the dog rescue story, they can search Twitter for #dogrescue. They can type the hashtag into the Twitter search box. After clicking the magnifying glass, they will see a number of tweets with the #dogrescue hashtag.
Marketing with the hashtag
A hashtag is an amazing tool that helps you
♦ Give a message within a message,
♦ Take advantage of trending topics and
♦ Engage with various sub-groups of people.
You can create your own hashtag. However, it is usually better marketing to use ones that are trending.
Trending
I checked trending hashtags out on these websites:
♦ Trendsmap.com,
♦ Hashtags.org and
♦ hashtagify.me.
I have a blog post about dogs rescued from fires (laserphoto.ca/dog-rescue). Google Trends suggested to me that “dog rescue” would be the best keyword for the article. Hashtagify.me suggested to me that #petrescue and #animalrescue may be as good as #dogrescue. However, after I made the tweet, the hashtag that fit best into the context was #dogrescue.
Hashtagify.me to find the best hashtag
I like the way Hashtagify.me displays the 10 related hashtags in an image format. By clicking on one of them, you can find hashtags related to that new hashtag. (See a Hashtagify Me glossary.)
By clicking on the top influencers tab , you can find out who uses the particular hashtag the most. By scrolling down a bit you can find a graph 
of the top 6 influencers. You can hover over each circle and find out how many followers each one has. These data can help you decide which one of these influencers (if any) you would like to form a relationship with.
To learn more about this subject, go to the help page and scroll down to the Top Influencers heading.
What hashtag in what region?
Trendsmap.com can help you know which trends are popular in which city or which country. Armed with this knowledge, you can custom tweet using the most popular hashtags in a particular area.
Related hashtags and prolific users
The Hashtags.org website helps you find related hashtags. It also helps you find prolific users of that hashtag. Those are people who use a particular hashtag repeatedly in their various posts. If a particular hashtag fits into the theme of your account, you may want to establish a relationship with some of those prolific users. They are tweeting about same topic as you are. You may be able to exchange links, etc.
Related pages about hashtags
Hashtag tools
Get the most out of hashtags with these three tools.
#MyWeirdNeighbor
The note at the bottom of Jimmy Fallon’s YouTube video reads
Jimmy reads his favorite tweets with the hashtag #MyWeirdNeighbor. Watch
the YouTube video.
#WorstSummerJob
The note at the bottom of Jimmy Fallon’s YouTube video reads
School’s out for summer, so Jimmy reads his favorite tweets with the hashtag #WorstSummerJob. Watch the YouTube video.
Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. As a VA (virtual assistant), he specializes in new website development, researching and writing blog posts and creating videos for YouTube and as animated GIFs. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.
