Rising Creators Forum

Instagram's hashtag strategy seems to change every few months. right now i'm using about 15-20 hashtags per post but i'm not sure if that's helping or hurting

Some people say use 30, some say use 5, some say hashtags are dead. What's actually working for you?

I stopped using hashtags completely 6 months ago and my reach actually improved

Here's why: instagram's AI can tell what your content is about from the image, caption, and past content. hashtags are basically redundant now

my reach sources breakdown (no hashtags):
- 45% from non-followers (mostly explore page)
- 35% from followers
- 20% from other sources

before using hashtags:
- 25% from non-followers
- 60% from followers
- 15% from hashtags specifically

so hashtags were only driving 15% of my reach and apparently were hurting my overall performance

I think instagram sees heavy hashtag use as trying to game the system and deprioritizes that content. just write good captions with natural keywords and let the algorithm figure it out

test it yourself though. instagram experiments with different things for different accounts. What works for me might not work for you

Instagram officially said to use 3-5 hashtags now, not 30 like it used to be

i tested this for 2 months:
- first month: used 25-30 hashtags per post, average reach 1,200
- second month: used 3-5 highly relevant hashtags, average reach 2,800

The difference was huge. Instagram's algorithm can understand your content without hashtags now, and using too many looks spammy

my current strategy:
- 1-2 niche hashtags (under 50k posts)
- 1-2 mid-size hashtags (100k-500k posts)
- 1 broad hashtag (1M+ posts) if it's really relevant

I also stopped putting hashtags in the first comment. just add them naturally to the end of your caption

The key is relevance. don't use #instagood or #photooftheday because literally millions of posts use those and you'll get buried instantly. use hashtags that actually describe your specific content