Bite Size Comms

Although the hash symbol has been used in coding language since the 1970s, hashtags were invented in 2007 by the American blogger Chris Messina in a tweet. They are a means for content creators to communicate metadata tags with the servers that run social media platforms so that people browsing those platforms can find our lovely posts. Adding hashtags to posts, sometimes 20 or more, became popular to promote content and increase reach. They have been used to create wonderful new compound words, in which the short English text has started to resemble German!

Social platform algorithms and their search functions have become smarter. There is often no need to search for content as the algorithm will deliver it to your feed. Whatever you think of TikTok, most users love the platform’s algorithm. At the same time, spammers and malicious bots found hashtags to be a weakness that could be exploited. Screen reading apps used by visually impaired and blind people read each out individually, sometimes with hilarious results with combined word hashtags!

Let’s have some fun. 

🤣 #susanalbumparty. Please read that hashtag carefully! It was used by the Britain’s Got Talent runner-up, Susan Boyle, to celebrate her new album release.

🤣 #nowthatchersdead. Who died? Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher or the musician Cher? Americans were particularly confused as correct US English is ‘now that’.

🤣 #doitonthebus. This was an innocent campaign to promote a public transport service. It does allow the imagination to wander.

🤣 Someone really should have advised Pokemon Masters EX against paying for the hashtag #pokemonmastersex.

🤣 The last laugh is at poor Powergen Italia, which decided to use the hashtag #powergenitalia. This was also their domain name!

In reality, hashtags have become unnecessary. Their original purpose is no longer needed, and hashtag searches have correspondingly decreased dramatically. 

If you still love using hashtags, limit the number you add to each post. A maximum of five on Instagram, two on X, and one on Facebook. Otherwise, the algorithm thinks that fishing for views is phishing. Bucking the trend, Instagram said it is simplifying the hashtag and search experience. Now, when you tap on a hashtag, you’ll see the search results for that hashtag. Don’t even bother with hashtags on LinkedIn or TikTok. They don’t work well as search tools. I read a post on LinkedIn this last week from a tourism promotion organisation in Lithuania that had 11 hashtags. Maybe going for an industry award! If you want to use hashtags, ensure the hashtag is a keyword from your post.

Hashtags are dying. However, social platform algorithms and search functions have improved so much, and humour will survive without them!

[image: Walls.io on Unsplash]