If you want your tweets on Twitter to go beyond your own following, hashtags are a great option. When you add a hashtag to your tweets, your updates can be seen not only by the people who follow you but also by anyone who happens to be following that particular hashtag.

Once you know exactly how to use hashtags, the next challenge is to find the best hashtags to incorporate into your tweets. Here are some great resources that will help you do just that.

Hashtags.org

Hashtags.org offers a simple interface to search for hashtags and their trending popularity. For example, if you search on the hashtag #business, Hashtags.org will graphically display the times of day and days of the week when the #business hashtag is most popular. If you scroll down below the graph, you’ll also see the latest tweets that include that hashtag.

Hashtags.org also lists a number of topics along with their related hashtags. So, instead of using the #business hashtag in your tweets, you might consider the alternatives suggested by the site, such as #networking, #consumer or #marketing. Hashtags.org will help get you thinking about other possible keywords, topics, and hashtags that you can use in your Twitter updates.

What the Trend

What the Trend gives you insights on the top topics and hashtags that are trending worldwide. You can even narrow your selection down to particular countries and cities. What the Trend offers a Top 10 board which shows you the current trending topics, the most active trends of the day, trends marked as spam, and the most popular trends within the last 30 days.

If you don’t see the trend you need, you can use the search box to see more data about a hashtag you’re interested in. As with Hashtags.org, you’ll get the latest tweets about that topic as well as related blog posts.

Twubs

Twubs is a unique site that lets Twitter users form groups around popular hashtags. Since the information is user-generated, you can see what hashtags are popular under categories such as books, conferences, the Internet, movies, news, politics, and much more.

Since Twubs is one of the few sites where you can find hashtags grouped into categories, it’s an excellent place to find other Twitter users with similar interests to connect with. Once you start interacting with other people on the site and through Twitter, you can expand your own network with like-minded individuals.

Tagalus

Tagalus may not be the most comprehensive hashtag resource, but its powerful search capabilities more than make up for that. Like Google, when you start typing a hashtag idea, Tagalus will auto-suggest related hashtags.

The auto-suggest results will help you come up with new ideas related to the topic you’re planning to tweet. For example, if you start typing “Twitter,” Tagalus will have make suggestions with Twitter at the beginning (#twitterindex), middle (#famoustwitterquotes) or end (#etsytwitter) of possible related results.

Tagdef

Tagdef has columns of information about trending hashtags including “Top today,” “Top this week” and “All time high.” Click on any of the hashtags to learn more information, such as the user-provided definition and related tags.

Beneath the definitions for each hashtag, you can also view the latest tweets for that hashtag. You can then click on accounts that have tweeted that tag and go directly to their Twitter profile.

Trendsmap

Trendsmap is a visual Twitter trend generator that shows you the latest trends and hashtags used around the world — all displayed on a map. If you’re looking for location specific trends for your local business, this is the perfect place to find them.

Whenever you click on a trend or a hashtag, it will give you the latest tweets for that topic, in realtime. You can also see trending analytics graphs for each topic showing the local and global popularity of that trend.

These are some of the best resources available to find, create and analyze Twitter hashtags. Know any others? Leave us your best link in the comments below.

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