Dan McDonnell on Getting More Out of Twitter Hashtags

Hello, my name is Dan McDonnell and I am a Community Manager for the American Evaluation Association (AEA). Hashtags are an integral part of the Twitter experience. Whether you follow popular hashtags like #eval to keep up on the latest news in evaluation, or you include them in your own Tweets to join larger conversations and connect with other users with similar interests, there are an immensely useful feature. Third-party tools can help you get more mileage out of hashtags. Here are a few that I find extremely useful.

Cool Tool: Twilert

Think of Twilert as Google Alerts for Twitter. Once you set up an account, you can enter in a hashtag or keyword – and Twilert will automatically email you whenever a Tweet uses the input. No need to stare and refresh your Twitter feed 24/7, 365 if you want to get late, breaking news.

Cool Tool: Keyhole

Keyhole is your view into deeper analytics around Twitter hashtags. This tool allows you to set up a hashtag as a ‘track,’ which provides insights around how many people are seeing or reading a hashtag, top recent Tweets using the hashtag and even suggest users for you to follow. You can filter searches using multiple hashtags for even deeper insights, and download charts and reports in .XLS format and unleash your inner data geek.

Cool Tool: Ritetag

Quite simply, Ritetag  tells you how likely your Tweet will be seen or discovered using an individual hashtag. Once you install the browser add-on (highly recommended) Ritetag will sync with the Twitter client (or most other major third-party apps like Buffer, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and more) and  instantly start feeding you information about the hashtag you’ve just entered into the Tweet window. It will tell you the number of unique Tweets per hour, Retweets, the number of impressions – and more. It will even tell you (via a color-coded system) whether the hashtag you are using is overused, and thus unlikely to be read.

Cool Tool: Bluenod

Data visualization time. Enter a hashtag into Bluenod and it creates a map of the community using that hashtag. You’ll visualize a series of nodes, emphasizing the connections between users, their influence nd their frequency. Check it out, it’s tough to do this tool justice without giving it a try yourself.

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