Hashtags have well and truly taken over. And not just on social media, #hashtag is now a child’s name. We even sheepishly admit to using it in our everyday conversations and there are certainly some Fireflies (we will not name names) who have THAT cringe photo making the hashtag sign.

Yet, we cannot overlook the continuing importance of the hashtag for marketers and PRs. There is still a huge opportunity to create greater awareness for brands, to interact with customers and clients, source feedback from them and to identify and make the most of current trends. The humble # continues to be one of the most effective means of marketing on social media.

Still, all the best intentions can often end up with the worst results. We have all witnessed it.  From jumping on an inappropriate trending hashtag, to formulating that inadvertently rude one, all of these send a slight shiver down our spine. So, how can you avoid that #EpicFail and instead maximise a hashtag’s potential?

The tool Hashtagify promises to help you do exactly this. With so many (over 40 million) hashtags to choose from, the advanced hashtag search engine aims to not only show which hashtags to use but also how best to use them.

So, how does it do this?

Simply start by searching for your first keyword on the site. Hashtagify will immediately show you the popularity of this hashtag, along with the top 10 related hashtags, outlining their popularity and correlation to your original keyword. The tool also identifies the top influencers for that hashtag as well as which languages are used with it, the different spellings and when it is used. A hashtag wall shows you, in real-time, all the places where the hashtag is currently being used.

All this is available on their free basic service but to gain a true insight you do need to opt into one of the paid premium plans. These offer much greater analysis.

Research assistants and usage reports precisely pinpoint what works and what doesn’t. Is it more effective to have just one hashtag or a whole stream of them? At which specific times of day is a hashtag trending? You can even identify an individual’s most successful tweets and have suggestions of new targeted hashtags, tailored specifically for you. A trend identifier means you don’t just follow the trend, you can lead it, staying ahead of your competition.

Want to look beyond Twitter? The newest feature available is a hashtag tracker for Instagram which, unlike other hashtag search engines, looks at both posts and likes.

After trying out a few experiments of our own, this tool has definitely made us think twice about when and what we type after that little symbol. After all, a few words, or even just one, can potentially have a huge impact. And with tools like Hashtagify, we can certainly make the most of them and happily #hashtag away.