We’ll answer your questions about the relevance of hashtags today.

 

 

Are hashtags dead? Should you still use them on social media?

Twitter (X), Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn have come a long way since their respective launches. They have changed the way the world communicates, including in our business and personal lives. You may even struggle to remember the world without hashtags before Twitter debuted them back in 2007. Suddenly, account holders could use them to catalogue their posts’ themes and attract new followers. It seemed the way of the future!

However, a popular social media marketing topic in 2025 has been the question “Are hashtags dead?”. Affecting many of your business’s marketing plans, we wanted to define the term hashtag in the first half of this article. You can then learn why hashtags are dead based on expert views from trusted sources. At the end, it will cover whether hashtag use in social media is still a worthwhile strategy for your upcoming content.

What does ‘hashtag’ mean in social media?

Who invented the hashtag?

Originally known as the ‘hash sign’ or ‘hash mark’, the ‘#’ symbol became social media’s original cool kid (the hashtag) in modern culture. However, its popularity soon went beyond the keyboard, becoming a frequently used slang expression on TV shows, films and in everyday life.

How to use hashtags in social media marketing

Placed in front of a brief word or phrase, without a space in between, they became a link and helped tag and describe what a social media post was talking about. Take, for example, #ThrowbackThursday, which indicated that the creator had reposted something from their feed history. It could also describe the location (e.g. #Edinburgh), the industry the account belonged to (such as #Florists), as well as their brand name (e.g. #Acer).

So effective, people didn’t stop at using one hashtag once they learnt about its success. Many posters filled the end of their Instagram captions with up to 30 different hashtag terms. Back then, the suggestion of the question ‘Are hashtags dead?’ seemed ridiculous.

Has hashtag use in social media ever gone global?

Not only helpful for cataloguing social media posts into topic themes and so on, but many accounts have employed hashtag use in social media to create a conversation. This applies both on and off social media sites.

For example, some hashtags such as #MyBreak (KitKat), and #IceBucketChallenge ascended social media to advertise products in multiple countries, inspire global discussion and further charitable causes.

The benefits of using hashtags on social media? 

The marriage of hashtags and social media worked well (until it didn’t).

Adding a hashtag was fast, easy and free to do, became valuable, and so was quickly adopted because it helped everyone. Social media users were able to find what they enjoyed reading. Likewise, businesses that wanted their products or services to be found on social media networks were discovered and shown to interested audiences.

In this way, there were many benefits of using hashtags on social media for brands:

• They increased their authority and profile
• They could receive more enquiries and leads
• Their social media posts drew people to their websites
• Different content topics and formats were united
• Social media giveaways and question events were advertised
• They could make headlines with trending challenges.

Many more advantages existed. But these six points above show that carefully chosen hashtags were once worth adding. Business owners’ creativity and imagination were the only limits in many ways.

Why are hashtags dead on social media now?

If we described hashtags and social media as the ultimate power couple, then it’s safe to say that they are now experiencing difficulties. Continue reading to learn expert evidence for the question ‘Are hashtags dead?’.

A perfect tech storm

The vastly knowledgeable business resource Forbes argues, “It looks like the hashtag is losing steam”. The same early 2025 article explained three factors why alternative social media processes are at work:

1. “More sophisticated” algorithms

These more advanced and nuanced tools are seen as better equipped to match social users with content that reflects their past engagement and interests.

2. “Search capabilities are always improving”

Fewer businesses and solopreneurs need to rely on hashtags on social media these days, given viable alternatives that include ChatGPT and Google Search.

3. A new digital landscape

It is not only Instagram where videos are king. Forbes reminds readers that “On platforms like LinkedIn, text-based content is ceding ground to more visual forms of content delivery, especially video content”, so “the focus on written identifiers like hashtags naturally shifts to visual presentation”.

In other words, the world of social media marketing is moving beyond hashtags. Google can now index Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn posts to name just three leading sites. This practice, alongside algorithms and the rise of video, is making real changes.

Too popular for their own good?

Oversaturation of hashtags is to blame

Another 2025 article, this time on LinkedIn, suggests that “hashtags are losing their grip [due to] oversaturation”. So many posters were including trending hashtags with their content that they became meaningless to try and be discovered among the noise.

Imagine trying to be seen in a sea of the following numbers, as shown on Influencer Marketing Hub, for hashtag references such as #photooftheday (1 billion hashtags), #instagood (11 million), or #sharefood (4 million hashtags).

It seems hashtags may have become almost meaningless due to the sheer volume of people who include them.

Ignoring hashtags may prevent misinformation

The same LinkedIn web article also draws our attention to the problematic use of hashtags by bots. Often intended to “exploit trending hashtags to spread misleading information, phishing attempts, and fraudulent schemes”, there have been efforts made by social network leaders to control this situation.

Relegating the importance of hashtags could therefore be seen as in the best interest of social media sites’ users.

Are hashtags dead?

The evidence we’ve discussed is strongly weighted against hashtags’ relevancy. Worse still for its fans, Immediate Future has revealed that the social media platforms themselves are taking a stance:

• “[Hashtags] help with categorisation, but not distribution”, according to Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s Head.
• Hashtags “clutter posts” in the opinion of Elon Musk.
• Pinterest has been “telling users to stop using hashtags altogether because they no longer help with search rankings”.

That these three social media brands are giving the hashtag the cold shoulder suggests that this punctuation symbol really has had its day.

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If you found this helpful, then you should also read these articles: Do websites matter in the age of social media?, Why Loomly is our first choice for social media management and How to create winning LinkedIn posts: our 8 top tips.