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Sep 2, 2025
I’ve been doing social media for nearly 15 years across higher ed, government, and the entertainment industry, working on campaigns for Amazon Prime, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Invincible, and more. In all that time, one debate just won’t die: are hashtags still useful, or are they dead?
Spoiler: hashtags aren’t dead. But they’re definitely on life support.
Here’s a glimpse of what you can learn in my talk about hashtags.
Plus, I’m handing you the ultimate hashtag survival guide: a platform-by-platform cheat sheet, when to use (and skip) them, and guardrails so you don’t tumble into the pit of #CringeMarketing. Reference it before every launch, event, or “should we make this a hashtag?” conversation 👇
There’s no better way to visualize the rise and slow fade of the hashtag than a little journey through its history, from revolutionary to… mostly vibes.
User-generated brilliance. Suddenly, the chaos of early Twitter has a filing system. Discovery thrives.
#ThrowbackThursday! #NoFilter! Hashtags are social currency and low-key growth hacks. Instagram especially leans in: using the “right” ones actually gets you reach.
Technically they work. Emotionally? No one wants them. Felt like a brand trying too hard at the party.
#ShareaCoke, #LikeAGirl, #OptOutside. This is when brands believed hashtags could carry entire campaigns. Sometimes they could!
#MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter underscore the real power of a hashtag. Beyond algorithms, hashtags can unite people, elevate voices, and shift culture.
30-hashtag captions start to feel like spam. Social managers pivot to more thoughtful usage (or drop them altogether).
Platforms now rely on behavior, interests, and AI-powered discovery. Keyword search gets smarter. Hashtags become… decorative?
Using the “wrong” hashtag could tank your post (allegedly). Social teams start second-guessing every single #Inspo.
Threads doesn’t support hashtags. TikTok makes them look useful, but the real driver is watch time. Instagram quietly deprioritizes them. They’re not gone, but their power has definitely dimmed.
Hashtags have been pronounced dead for as long as social media has been around. Yet, like zombies, they keep shuffling forward. Instagram killed hashtag following, X banned them in ads, Threads doesn’t bother with them at all and even so, people keep using them.
Why? Because hashtags have become cultural artifacts. They’re embedded in how we use the internet. They may have lost a lot of their original utility, but they’re still hanging on.
That said: their role is shrinking. Platforms are shifting to keyword-driven discovery and algorithmic feeds. Once the platforms themselves decide hashtags are irrelevant, that’s the real death knell.
If you’re still tacking 30 random hashtags onto every Instagram post hoping for more reach: stop. That strategy didn’t work even when hashtags were more powerful.
A hashtag without a purpose is clutter. Worse, it can make your content look outdated or spammy. Hashtags are not magic SEO juice for social media posts. Every word in a caption should earn its place. If you can’t answer “why is this hashtag here?” then go ahead and delete it.
Clients often insist on branded hashtags. My advice? Don’t fight that battle too hard.
Branded hashtags usually function as glorified taglines. Unless you give your audience a clear reason to use them, think a contest, an event, a campaign that encourages participation, your customers won’t bother.
But branded hashtags aren’t harmful either. They won’t tank your reach, and if they satisfy a stakeholder, sometimes it’s best to let them be.
Hashtags aren’t entirely useless. They still shine in a few situations:
The common thread? Purpose. Hashtags only work when they’re tied to clear intent.
Of course, hashtags can go very wrong. The classics include:
Bottom line: always scan how a hashtag is being used before jumping on it.
If you’re going to use hashtags, keep it intentional:
Here’s the real talk: whether hashtags live or die won’t make or break your social media strategy. Great content will.
You can hack around with keywords, hashtags, and algorithm “tricks” all day, but if your content doesn’t resonate, none of it matters.
That’s why I spend more time listening to communities than fiddling with hashtag lists. Join the Discord servers, lurk in subreddits, dive into fan groups. If scented candles have fandoms (kid you not, they’re called “fandles”), your industry does too. Learn how your audience speaks, then reflect that naturally in your content.
That authenticity does more for reach than any hashtag could.
Not quite. But their glory days are long gone. Today, hashtags are niche tools for specific use cases and not the growth hack marketers once treated them as.
If hashtags had a tombstone, the epitaph would probably just read: #YOLO.
TL;DR: use hashtags if you have a clear purpose. Skip them if you don’t. And never let them distract you from the real priority: creating content your audience actually cares about.
Jon-Stephen Stansel is an award-winning social media professional with 10+ years of experience managing and creating content for top brands. He has led social strategy for Amazon Prime’s Invincible, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and Avatar: The Way of Water, as well as universities, state agencies, and small businesses. A former Director of Social Media at Chaotic Good Studios, Jon-Stephen has also taught courses, spoken at international conferences, and holds degrees in Radio/TV Production and English from Arkansas State University.
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