Most popular hashtags on Twitter

Using hashtags in your Tweets obviously increases the visibility of your message. They also allow you to start or join conversations. Discover in this article the list of most popular hashtags, their classification in an interactive mind map and a free tool to explore them If you are active on Twitter or if you plan to be soon, you may find helpful to have a look at the most popular hashtags you could insert in your messages. Twitter hashtags marks keywords or topics in Tweets. They are composed of a single word or phrase beginning with a "#" and with no spaces or punctuation. They were originally created by Twitter users and have become a so powerful and natural way to participate in global conversations that even Facebook rolled-out the system.

If you want to start a conversation, you can introduce new ones. If you want to join a conversation already happening on Twitter, find the hashtag that's being used. Hashtags are commonly used in discussion of breaking news (e.g. #royalbaby), TV shows (e.g. #xfactor) or 'major' events such as conferences (e.g. #G20), sport competitions (e.g. #london2012), music concert (e.g. #believetour), … Tweeting with the right hashtag, whether it is for personal or business reason, is a great way to send your message not just to your followers, but to everyone who is tuned into that conversation.

Using hashtags in your Tweets obviously increases the visibility of your message and probably even more if they are largely adopted by the Twitter community. In order to know what those popular keywords were, I looked for some statistics, analytical systems or search engines that could list them. I found a very interesting online tool called Hashtagify.me, completely free. It’s a visual explorer that allows you to find the best hashtags to reach your audience. Just type one in the search box and get instantaneously its popularity. From the graph you can quickly check and access correlated topics.

Hashtagify.me visual hashtag explorer

I used Hashtagify to collect more than 150 of the most popular topics on Twitter that I ordered in a mind map (very subjective classification). I voluntary limited my choices to a score greater than 65. This arbitrary number corresponded to the popularity of some terms I wanted to keep on my map. I exceptionally accepted a couple of lower scores, in order to cover the mind mapping domain. Here is the result.

Mind map of the most popular hashtags on Twitter

They are many more topics beating the 65 score, especially if you look at famous places, popular people, top brands, domain specific jargon or sex related matter. Besides, I only included English words and there are probably some popular hashtags in other languages as well. Use Hashtagify search engine to investigate further based on your interests like Hans Buskes did with Bob Dylan.

Knowing the organic aspect of "real time" statistics and considering that my scores will become quickly obsolete, I had to provide you with a way to check the actual popularity of one or more terms I listed, at any time. For that reason, I added a direct link to the Hashtagify search result on each branch.

You may also be interested to check the most recent tweets that have been posted in relation to some hashtags. Therefore, I added a second link to directly access the search results on Twitter.

Finally, I wanted to give you some assistance to discover the meaning of very particular hashtags and how they should be used. That’s why you will find on some branches a third link to search related resources on Google.

But you are wondering how you will benefit from those links without running iMindMap and opening the file on your computer. The great news is that iMindMap has now a web viewer. This means that you can interact online with my mind map. You can click on the different associated links, yexpand or collapse branches according to your needs, zoom in and out and search a specific term.

The table here below is another way to directly access up-to-date hashtag popularity (hyperlink on the number between brackets) and associated Twitter messages (hyperlink on the hashtag name). I obtained that list with the export feature of iMindMap.

#mindmap (37)

#xmind (18)

#biggerplate (13)

#mindmanager (23)

#mindmapping (33)

#mindmaps (24)

#freemind (25)

#visual (47)

#handmade (66)

#imindmap (13)

#art (75)

#photography (78)

#photo (75)

#writing (67)

#style (68)

#blog (72)

#book (72)

#books (72)

#ebook (66)

#hot (76)

#happy (78)

#smile (72)

#fun (74)

#funny (74)

#free (80)

#freedom (80)

#beautiful (75)

#pretty (68)

#sexy (78)

#nice (69)

#cute (77)

#amazing (74)

#best (70)

#perfect (72)

#crazy (71)

#technology (69)

#cloud (66)

#tech (72)

#design (72)

#online (74)

#mobile (69)

#app (70)

#web (66)

#seo (73)

#google (74)

#youtube (76)

#android (96)

#apple (76)

#iphone (87)

#itunes (74)

#ios (66)

#ipad (91)

#socialmedia (77)

#facebook (78)

#like (71)

#instagram (78)

#instamood (69)

#instagood (73)

#instadaily (66)

#picoftheday (66)

#twitter (80)

#hashtag (68)

#shoutout (83)

#rt (99)

#retweet (92)

#follow (91)

#followall (73)

#mustfollow (86)

#followme (90)

#ff (99)

#autofollow (87)

#following (67)

#followback (92)

#teamfollowback (100)

#instantfollowback (86)

#nowfollowing (78)

#openfollow (93)

#business (75)

#leadership (68)

#marketing (75)

#jobs (86)

#job (85)

#freelance (67)

#vacature (68)

#deals (70)

#deal (70)

#money (71)

#win (84)

#sale (69)

#sales (65)

#life (76)

#truth (80)

#realtalk (78)

#fact (82)

#facts (67)

#friends (75)

#boyfriend (72)

#girl (71)

#girls (70)

#hair (69)

#god (71)

#jesus (72)

#faith (66)

#love (87)

#nature (69)

#weather (71)

#green (69)

#summer (77)

#sun (71)

#beach (70)

#sky (67)

#health (75)

#food (75)

#diet (68)

#live (70)

#help (74)

#tips (67)

#please (74)

#thankyou (71)

#support (69)

#family (76)

#education (68)

#college (68)

#science (66)

#inspiration (68)

#motivation (68)

#entertainment (66)

#media (66)

#video (77)

#radio (68)

#tv (70)

#xfactor (76)

#movie (70)

#movies (68)

#download (72)

#share (70)

#music (86)

#dance (67)

#nowplaying (94)

#np (96)

#mp3 (67)

#listen (72)

#listenlive (71)

#style (68)

#rock (68)

#rap (67)

#hiphop (72)

#spotify (72)

#travel (76)

#london (73)

#sports (71)

#sport (69)

#london2012 (72)

#football (74)

#fashion (77)

#game (70)

#games (68)

#anime (70)

#ps3 (67)

#party (72)

#birthday (69)

#night (70)

#shopping (70)

#amazon (78)

#kindle (72)

#info (72)

#quote (80)

#quotes (75)

#news (87)

If you want to engage more people in your conversations on Twitter, start right now to insert one or two well-chosen hashtags in your Tweets. Do not hesitate to share your comments and tell me which one is giving good results for you or how helpful this list is.

Hope to see you soon in #mindmap (37) or #mindmapping (33) conversations,
Be #openminded (36),
Be #creative (59),
Be #yourself (45).