The Rise of the Hashtag
World Hashtag Day is celebrated annually on August 23rd and it marks the anniversary of the first-ever hashtag used on social media. On this day in 2007, Chris Messina posted a tweet suggesting the use of hashtags, resulting in #barcamp becoming the first ever hashtag. This was his tweet:
“How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?”
It then took off across multiple platforms including Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, each using them to expand content reach and contribute to trending conversations.
The Great Hashtag Debate
Most platforms now have algorithm-driven feeds, so some people think hashtags have become redundant, but with the increase in people using platforms such as Instagram and TikTok as search platforms, using hashtags can often help get your content categorised ready for when your niche is searched. A 2026 study revealed that 43% of UK consumers now use social platforms for daily search, with Gen Z bypassing traditional engines like Google, treating hashtags and keywords in captions much like a search query. On these platforms, a well-chosen hashtag isn’t just decoration, it’s how your content gets surfaced to someone actively looking for it. Arguably, hashtag’s newfound purpose is more valuable for businesses, as it helps you show up in front of an audience that is searching exactly for what you are offering.
Stuffing 30 hashtags into a caption to maximise reach doesn’t cut it anymore, now it is best for 3 to 5 hashtags to be used per post to help the algorithm understand the main concept of your post. Our advice would be to stop choosing hashtags based on their popularity alone, instead you should be choosing hashtags that are relevant to your post and specific to your niche.
Interestingly, the platform where it all started is now the least hashtag-friendly of them all. In 2024, Elon Musk stated on X to “please stop using hashtags”, calling them an aesthetic nightmare. The platform has also banned hashtags in paid ads.
Prioritise Social SEO
Although we think hashtags can be useful on platforms like TikTok and Instagram for searchability and are valuable on LinkedIn to help join conversations of a specific niche, platforms have deprioritised hashtag reach and have increased their focused on other factors.
For example, Instagram indexes the caption text for keywords, analyses alt text and even digests auto-captioned speech on videos and any on-screen text. These things should be a higher priority to get right, ensuring your caption includes relevant keywords as well as including them in the alt text. Alt text is there to help accessibility, but it also helps the platforms understand the content of an image and tries to use that information to show it to the right audiences.
Conclusion
To conclude, hashtags aren’t dead, but they’re no longer doing the heavy lifting, keywords are. Keep your hashtags relevant and to a maximum of 5 and put the real effort into your caption and alt text instead.
