Hashtags have been a symbol of social media for years, but have they seen their time? Are they becoming a tool of the past?
A bit of hashtag history
Hashtags were born in 2007 on X (Twitter at the time) as a way to group posts together that were talking about the same things. The idea was to make it easier to find people with similar opinions and interests. Hashtags became a very valuable tool on every platform to get your posts in front of your target audience. While X (Twitter) limited the number of hashtags you could use by including them in the very limited character count of your posts, Instagram ‘limited’ you to a massive 30 hashtags per post!
Just as we were all getting used to the fact that every caption was followed by a massive wall of hashtags, the rules changed. On a lot of platforms, hashtags became less powerful, but on Instagram, they were still invaluable. The wall of hashtags turned into 3 hashtags focused on your niche, 3 hashtags focused on your audience and 3 hashtags focused on your business.
And then, Instagram made a massive update that meant that you could no longer follow hashtags and therefore you would no longer get recommended posts based on the hashtags they used.
How to use hashtags today
Unfortunately, I can’t give you an easy answer like “keep using hashtags” or “stop using them”. I mean, when is social media ever that simple?
On some platforms (for example TikTok and X), hashtags still have their place at the end of your captions. If you focus all your hashtags around one particular keyword, they can really help the platform categorise your post and therefore show it to something who needs to see it. The challenge is to not confuse the platform even more.
On other platforms (Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn), hashtags have gone back to a way to connect with people over a very specific topic. For example, if you go to an event called “Example Event”, and then a load of people posted using #ExampleEvent, you’d be able to look through the posts that used that hashtag and connect with people who attended the event. By using big hashtags like #Networking, you’re essentially adding a link away from your post, but very few (if any) are going to find your post thanks to the hashtag.
Stay up-to-date
Staying up to date with how to use features like this can be exhausting – but you don’t have to do it alone! My membership group, the Ace Group, is designed as a space for me to not only filter out all the updates that don’t affect you but also to help you understand what they really mean for you and your business.
See what a current member recently said about it:
“[…] I joined because I’d been impressed by her blogs, which show both an in-depth knowledge of a wide range of social media platforms and also a massive amount of common sense in how to apply them to small businesses. I wanted to have access to someone who’d warn me when things changed – when traps might arise that might endanger my ongoing access to my social media audience – and that’s exactly what I’ve gained! The community standards changed on a platform where I’ve over 5k contacts and Tesni told me in time to change the status of my profile to match the new standards! […]
Thanks for reading! I share a blog like this one every other Tuesday, and if you feel like they help your social media presence, and more importantly, your business – then please consider leaving a tip.
Every time this tip jar reaches £15, I’ll run a giveaway on social media so a small business can access my membership group for two months.
Tesni xx
