6 Must-Have Hashtag Tracker Tools to Analyze Your Business on Social Media

Social media marketing is essential for every business today, but how do you know what‘s working and what‘s not? This is where hashtag trackers come in.

As your resident tech geek and data analytics expert, I‘ve tested and reviewed the top hashtag tracking tools to help you maximize your social media efforts. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll explain:

Why hashtag tracking is critical for brands
Key benefits and use cases
6 best hashtag tracking tools for business
Tips for choosing the right platform
How to integrate hashtag tracking into your strategy

Let‘s dig in!

Why Hashtag Tracking Matters

Hashtags have become ubiquitous on social media – they help users find relevant content and participate in conversations. For businesses, leveraging branded hashtags allows you to:

Increase reach and engagement on social media
Build awareness around products, offers or campaigns
Foster user-generated content and conversations
Track mentions and sentiment towards your brand

But how do you know if your hashtags are working? This is where hashtag tracking comes in.

Hashtag tracking tools allow you to monitor branded and industry-related hashtag conversations in real-time across social platforms.

You gain access to data-driven insights about your audience and competitors so you can optimize social media marketing. According to Sprout Social, 68% of marketers say hashtag tracking helps them improve audience targeting.

4 Key Benefits of Hashtag Tracking

As a digital marketing nerd, I always get excited about analytics dashboards and data visualizations. Hashtag trackers provide valuable intelligence that can give your business an edge, including:

Discover New Audiences

Hashtag tracking reveals who‘s talking about your brand organically. You can identify new demographics and interest groups to target your content towards.

For example, a clothing brand can track their branded hashtag on Instagram to find micro-influencers and style bloggers to collaborate with. The associated data helps refine audience targeting.

Monitor Brand Sentiment

You can gain real-time insights into what people think about your brand. Hashtag tracking tools analyze sentiment across social networks – so you can quickly address negative feedback.

A 2022 Sprout Social study found 52% of consumers expect brands to respond to complaints on social media within 24 hours. Hashtag tracking enables rapid response.

Analyze Competitors

Keep tabs on competitors by tracking relevant industry hashtags to benchmark performance. Identify their top-performing content and influencer partners.

These competitive insights help you refine your own social media strategy. According to HubSpot, 55% of businesses say competitive analysis helps them improve marketing campaigns.

Optimize Content Strategy

Hashtag tracking provides tangible data on engagement levels across different types of content. You can double down on what resonates with your audience.

For example, TGIFridays leveraged hashtag tracking to determine the most engaging content pillar was posts tying meals to pop culture. This audience insight informed their content calendar.

Top 6 Hashtag Tracking Platforms

Now let‘s explore some of my favorite hashtag tracking tools I‘ve tested as a digital marketer:

1. Awario

Awario is an intuitive, all-in-one social media monitoring and analytics platform. It provides powerful hashtag tracking across Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, blogs, forums, and more.

I like how easy it is to set up custom searches and get visualizations of historical hashtag data. Awario‘s real-time alert feature is also handy for monitoring branded hashtag mentions. Their sentiment analysis tool adds context to conversations.

Pricing starts at $29/month for Awario Starter. The higher-tier Awario Professional plan unlocks more social sources, data points, and users. They offer a free trial to test it out.

![Awario dashboard screenshot]

2. Keyhole

Keyhole is a robust hashtag tracking tool focused on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok analytics. It offers great visualizations of hashtag and user activity over time.

I love Keyhole‘s comparative analytics. You can easily compare multiple hashtags by geography, user gender, followers, content type, and more. This helps identify best-performing branded hashtags.

Plans start at $99/month. Keyhole is a great choice for brands focused on visual social platforms. They also offer a free demo.

![Keyhole graph screenshot]

3. Brand24

Brand24 provides powerful social listening and hashtag tracking capabilities. It monitors brands across social networks, news sites, forums, and blogs.

Handy features include sentiment analysis, influencer discovery, and the ability to track competitors. Brand24‘s real-time alerts keep you on top of relevant hashtag mentions.

Pricing is affordable at $49/month for the Starter plan. Brand24 offers a free trial to experience the platform.

![Brand24 dashboard screenshot]

4. Hashtracking

For Twitter analytics, Hashtracking is a great option. It‘s designed specifically for tracking and analyzing Twitter hashtags.

Hashtracking provides real-time monitoring, historical performance data, influencer analysis, and easy tweet exporting. The comparative view allows you to analyze up to 5 hashtags.

Plans start at $25/month for the Starter package. Hashtracking is perfect for those focused just on Twitter.

![Hashtracking graph screenshot]

I like Social Searcher for an affordable but powerful hashtag tracking option. It monitors hashtags across Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, forums, and blogs.

Useful features include sentiment analysis, influencer insights, and customizable reporting. Social Searcher makes it easy to compare hashtag performance across multiple networks.

Plans start at $24/month after a 14-day free trial. Social Searcher delivers strong capabilities for the price point.

![Social Searcher dashboard screenshot]

6. Talkwalker

For large enterprises, Talkwalker is a robust social listening platform with expansive hashtag tracking capabilities.

It offers AI-powered sentiment analysis across a wide range of networks. Custom visualizations allow granular tracking of hashtag metrics. Talkwalker also provides competitive benchmarking.

Pricing starts at $7,500/year for the Pro plan. But they offer a free demo to try out the platform.

![Talkwalker graph screenshot]

How to Choose the Right Tool

With so many options, how do you determine the best hashtag tracking tool for your business? Here are a few key factors to consider:

Your budget – Monthly costs range from $25 to over $500 for enterprise tools. Prioritize must-have features over nice-to-haves.
Platform support – Do you only need Twitter analytics or want expanded cross-platform tracking? Prioritize channels you actively use.
Use cases – Are you focused on monitoring competitors, measuring campaign impact, or gaining audience insights? Find a tool aligned to your goals.
Visualizations – Dashboards that provide easy-to-interpret graphical data are best for quick insights.
Customer support – Look for responsive support channels as you get started with setup and integration.

I recommend starting with free trials to get hands-on and see what resonates before purchasing a plan.

Integrate Hashtag Tracking Into Your Strategy

Here are 5 tips to effectively incorporate hashtag tracking into your social media strategy:

Set up tracking for branded and relevant industry hashtags. Monitor emerging topic hashtags too.
Schedule regular report reviews to analyze performance and sentiment over time.
Turn on alerts through email or mobile push notifications so you never miss relevant mentions.
Export and share data across your marketing team and leadership to align on insights.
Use the data to create targeted social content and campaigns that improve engagement.

The Takeaway

As your resident tech enthusiast, my key advice is this – hashtag tracking provides invaluable intelligence to boost your social media game. Platforms like Awario, Keyhole, and Brand24 make accessing these insights simple.

Monitor branded and industry hashtags to unlock data that helps you engage your audience, outperform competitors, and maximize your social presence. With the right tracking tool, you‘ve got this!

Let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m always happy to help strategize how to level up your social media analytics.