Thanks to one Twitter user, the concept of the 'hashtag' has become synonymous with an easy way to find meaningful search results on Twitter. It's since gone far beyond that - making it an easy way for Instagram users to tag their photography, has found a home on Google+ and there is even talk that hashtags could soon be coming to Facebook as well. But what if you wanted to search one hashtag on several services? Thanks to Tagboard that's exactly what you can do.

Tagboard is a handy free service which allows you to search hashtags on multiple services at the same time. The first is, obviously Twitter, and it is joined by Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Google+ and app.net. Once you search for a keyword, Tagboard creates a dynamic board filled with content from all the sources on that one topic.

Getting Started With Tagboard

At its most simplest, Tagboard is a great way to monitor keywords across social networks. This kind of feature is invaluable for those of you monitoring your brand online. The great thing about Tagboard is that, since its entirely free, it makes a great choice for someone who's just starting out with their business and doesn't want to spring for social media monitoring just yet.

Tagboard is also useful for a variety of other purposes. If you're researching a specific topic, or are following a specific event or incident in the media, you can see what everyone is saying about that topic on one page. A great example of this would be the way in which Twitter has been used in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt, as a tool to broadcast information from protests, courtrooms, and more. Journalists, activists and more use these services as a way of keeping the world aware of what's going on in Egypt - and using Tagboard, followers can keep up with the topic from one convenient page.

Once you've searched for a specific keyword, you can then view all content from the various sources, or you can filter it by source, and view just tweets, for example, with that hashtag.

Tagboard doesn't automatically refresh, but it will let you know when there is new content available, and you can hit the refresh button to load the latest tweets, Facebook posts and more.

When it comes to the content itself, you can, at the click of a link, access it on its original page but you can also interact with it on Tagboard itself.

With tweets, you can reply, favourite and retweet content.

With Instagram, you can like and comment on photos.

With Facebook, you can like and comment on posts, while with Google+, Vine and App.net, you can't interact with the content on Tagboard itself and will have to go to the original post to let the poster know what you want. Clicking on hashtags will open up the hashtag search board on Tagboard itself, not on the original site.

Creating Your Own Tagboard

While you can use Tagboard without signing up for an account, there is one advantage to signing up for your own free account. After signing into Tagboard with your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account, you can then create your own 'Tagboard' with a simple hashtag search, provided someone else hasn't beat you to it.

When creating a Tagboard, you can choose the hashtag, hashtag title, include a definition, link and avatar. This service is particularly useful for those of you who want to use Tagboard to monitor your social media presence and with these features, you can throw in a bit of personal branding to boot.

Creating your own Tagboard has other advantages too. It's useful for friends who, by using a unique hashtag, can collate content from all over their social networks, viewable on one page where they can interact with one another. That way, say you're posting something to Instagram, and not all of your friends use the app, they can easily keep up with your Instagram content from Tagboard.

Of course it means that the content will be viewable to the public, so if you'd rather find a way to share your Facebook and Instagram photos via email, you should check out PicDigest instead. The option to create private Tagboards, however, could take the service to another level as a social network hub.

Looking for some inspiration on what to keep up with using Tagboard? Why not check out this list of 5 useful Twitter hashtags and 15 hashtags every writer should know.

What do you think of Tagboard? How do you think you'll use the service? Let us know in the comments.