Are hashtags officially dead? 💀

Something happened the other day and I can't believe no one else is talking about it yet...

I was going about my business and posted a static post (so a single graphic)...

I had my caption and hashtags all locked and loaded, ready to hit post...

THEN, I got the notification to say I could only post 5 hashtags!

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And I'm curious to know, are you still able to post more than 5 hashtags?

I'm a girl who tests things out and experiment. So I quickly posted a reel to @thatmarketingclub to see if I could post more than 30 and I could.

So this doesn't appear to be rolled out across all accounts yet (I'm multi-passionate with 3 businesses, so the notification to only post 5 hashtags was my service based biz). 

But what this tells me is that if you can post more than 5...DON'T 🛑

Clearly our mate Zuckerberg is prioritising keywords and wants to keep hashtags specific rather than stuffing in all 30 that was previously possible.

Which I do get, because in the SEO world 'stuffing' is frowned upon. And with Insta moving into the space of SEO for discoverability, then I can understand why they are wanting to limit the ability to stuff words/keywords/hashtags in for the sake of it.

So, how do I feel about it?

I have mixed feelings about this change to be completely honest.

Hashtags served a great purpose and I found they helped with discoverability.

I also used them to find things that I was looking for.

However I did find it a little painful to go through the motions of 30 hashtags each and every time I wanted to create a post - that's why I am adamant about having a hashtag library to alternate based on the content - this saves me so much time, a template for this can be found in my $7/mo Content Club

So what should you do knowing this huge bombshell?

Now is the time to be more intentional with our hashtags. And our keywords too. Only use words and hashtags that are completely relevant to your topic.

And I guess we watch this space until Zuck and his team shares the game plan.

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Are you surprised that they've cut them down to 5?

How do you feel about the change?

Has this happened to you?

Are you glad they're moving in the direction to limit hashtags?

Let me know what you think over in the comments on the post here: Are hashtags dead

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