What the Hell Is Going On With Instagram Hashtags?

Instagram Hashtags— are they dead or not? 

It’s 2026 — videos are cinematic, carousel posts mirror magazines, influencers are favoring relatability over perfection and the hashtags on all of these posts are… gone. It’s a drastic change from the 30+ hashtag word salad that used to piggyback on every #OOTD and #travelgram post of 2016. While hashtag practices have changed several times over the last 10 years, the biggest change came just a few months ago in December 2025, when Meta announced that they will be scaling back the Instagram hashtag capacity to just a maximum of five hashtags per post. 

The stated reasons for this update made a lot of sense for the ever-changing social media algorithm. Meta’s Creators page put out a statement on December 18th 2025 explaining, “We find that using fewer (up to 5), more targeted hashtags rather than many generic ones can improve both your content’s performance and people’s experience on Instagram.” and goes on to emphasize that this is meant to force hashtags to be more intentional and quiet the noise. For the last couple years, it has become increasingly known and accepted that Meta prioritizes content SEO (specifically for keywords in the caption copy and in the creative visuals) and engagement over hashtags. But somehow the takeaway has become oversimplified from “be intentional” to “hashtags are dead” for many creators and brands. 

Why? 

Many people simply feel like they don’t need it, or prefer a cleaner, more simple caption. Some creators truly believe that hashtags are no longer beneficial. So we took a look at organic social media posts with hashtags that Rose & Salt Social created for clients in the last 30 days. Here’s what we found:  

• When looking at three different clients who are actively posting to Instagram 2-4 times per week, we found that the average number of interactions generated by hashtags was 2,670 interactions in the last 30 days. The numbers were pulled from performance reports generated by Vista Social.

• The top performing hashtags among these clients were those that are widely used to promote city specific tourism such as #visitseattle and #travelportland, as well as location specific, such as #downtownpdx and #pikeplacemarket. 

• The second highest ranking group of hashtags were those that are specific to brand and business names, indicating that those interactions may have come from people actively searching for the brand or location. This isn’t surprising since many people use Instagram similarly to Yelp or OpenTable, in search of less filtered and more inclusive experiences of a location before visiting themselves.  

• All three Instagram accounts that were compared have less than 5k followers. It is reasonable to conclude that pages with larger followings or higher engagement may benefit from even higher content interaction generated specifically from hashtags. 

On a more personal note, Rose & Salt Social still receives the occasional business inquiry from an Instagram hashtag. We know this because we ask in the inquiry how they came to find us, and are sometimes still delightfully surprised to see that it’s from an Instagram hashtag that led to our page. While this isn’t a main lead generation for us, like many small businesses, we appreciate and value every lead and online engagement we get. 

So the question is, are five hashtags at the bottom of your caption worth an additional 2.6k+ content interactions per month? For smaller and growing pages, it seems like a no brainer answer. Furthermore, it really doesn’t hurt. The important thing is that these hashtags are specific and intentional to help guide new audiences to your content.

So Which Instagram Hashtags Work? 

Location 

Use the popular hashtags for your location, or location specific niche. That could include the state, city, region, neighborhood, or a location specific event. 

Examples: #OregonWeddingPhotographer #VisitSeattle #FirstThursdayPDX

Business Name and Brand Tags 

Use the brand specific hashtags, or name of the business. 

Examples: #StaySonesta #ILBistro #TheHoxtonPDX 

Audience Name 

Use hashtags to address your audience — who are you looking for? Who might be looking for you? These are often keywords paired with locations.

Examples: #WashingtonWedding  #VeganPDX #SeattleFoodies #MidSizeStyle #LATattoo

Unique Selling Points 

Use hashtags that highlight a niche or unique selling point that helps you stand out from others in your industry. 

Examples: #FineLineTattoo #VeganDonuts #BlondeSpecialist #FilmPhotographer 

Keywords vs Hashtags 

If you still prefer the look of no hashtags but can’t fit some of these important keywords into your caption, an alternative method that many people choose is to add all the keywords at the end of the caption, just without the hashtag itself. What’s the difference? It can look cleaner, with regular word spacing and punctuation. Unfortunately, it’s also not trackable. 

The Bottom Line 

Brands and creators are increasingly choosing to forgo hashtags in their Instagram captions, but they’re not completely useless or “dead” as they have been inaccurately deemed. For smaller pages, hashtags can help boost interactions and engagement, but it also won’t make the biggest difference in overall content performance. If you care most about post aesthetics, you can sleep easy knowing that it won’t really make a huge difference. But if you care most about maximizing your page interactions, then utilize your five hashtags!