According to some, the hashtag has served its purpose and is on the way out – but is this true of all social media apps? And what should you be doing instead? Katrina Bell investigates.
Is it a case of hashes to ashes or is there still life in that workhorse of online marketing, the reliable old hashtag, which has been a central part of the Internet’s foundational architecture since 2009, when Twitter officially adopted them? We use them for a variety of jobs, such as creating or following a trend, building communities, updating the world in times of peril and unrest, or simply finding content.
However, noises from the big social apps such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are suggesting that hashtags are not the magic wand for increasing engagement they once were. Now is a good time to review your approach on each platform and work out how to optimise their use.
This is how hashtags behave on the major social apps…
Instagram (2bn active users)
This is the most surprising one – CEO Adam Mosseri has confirmed that hashtags will not increase post reach or visibility on the app. He’s even joked about setting up a website named dohashtagshelpreach.com and just putting up a screen saying ‘No’. Generally the app’s designers have little love for the paragraphs of spammy hashtags due to it being a sign of low quality content. However, what they will do is help users find your content who are interested in a specific slew paragraph of hashtags. The algorithm sees all!
Threads
The Insta-Sister text app Threads is already promoting a non-hashtag route via its topic Tags, which appear automatically in the input window. When you are creating a post, typing # will reveal a corresponding subject that users can click to see related posts on that topic. Because you have to actively type, it is designed to limit junky posts that co-opt tags to publish unrelated content. And you are only allowed one tag per post.
X-Twitter
The original home of hashtags is still hanging onto them to help users find their ‘tribes’ and to push the trending news to your feeds. The App recommends using no more than 2 per post – it’s still the case that engagement will increase through using hashtags, but posts with 3 or more get around 21% less engagement.
Bluesky
Sitting at a relatively miniscule 27.5m users, the supposed new home for the X-Twitter quitters does use hashtags, however users tend to use them mostly to curate their custom feeds. The platform has not supplied detailed information on the effectiveness of using or not using hashtags, however there is a feature to mute them altogether. Some users consider them being a bit cringeworthy or too reminiscent of the ‘other place’.
Facebook
The app’s news feed algorithm is an ever-changing smorgasbord of AI-driven systems seasoned with the changing whims of its overlords. Given that few users search by hashtag, and there isn’t an overt trending feature, keywords used organically in relevant content ‘signals’ – also called ranking factors – will still drive eyes more effectively than hashtags.
LinkedIn
The business-2-business platform has flip flopped over their use for years. Around 2016 they actively began amping up their use when they ‘turned them back on’ for in-app use after ignoring them for years. Since then they have again become no more than subject signposts thanks to improved algorithms that are able to scrape more extensive context from your post.
