Welcome back to the Digital Dispatch, our weekly deep dive into social trends and the data that turns them into growth strategies.
This week, we’re asking: Is the hashtag dead?
For a decade, the hashtag was the undisputed king of reach, the cheat sheet for going viral. But in the middle of last year, the game changed and Instagram’s leadership made it official: hashtags are no longer the primary tool for discovery.
At Brainlabs, we aren’t calling it a funeral, we’re calling it an evolution. Hashtags are still vital on TikTok for community categorisation and remain our go-to for tracking rising conversions across social media. However, there’s no doubt hashtags have been moved to the backseat.
The new driver? Social SEO.
Social media platforms now function more like a search engine than chronological feeds. The algorithm is no longer just looking at #HairCare; it’s “reading” the entire caption, on-screen text and audio transcripts to understand the content’s messaging.
While this shift forces a departure from your current social media strategy, it will reward the brands that embrace a descriptive, conversational tone. More importantly, it marks the end of siloed departments – now is the time to integrate your SEO and Social teams to create a unified, search-optimised social strategy.
Here’s some quick tips on how to make the most of Social SEO:
- Front-load the hook: Keywords are labels that help AI categorise your content – if your post is about “sustainable skincare,” don’t bury this phrase or leave it until the end.
- Use long-tail keywords: Instead of #Coffee, use the phrase “best cold brew spots in London”.
- Don’t forget about alt-text & on-screen: Descriptive alt-text and clear on-screen titles are also crawled as part of your SEO profile.
- Let trends guide you: Now, more than ever, trending conversations provide excellent insights into what your consumers are looking for. Instead of just adding hashtags to the bottom of your caption, you can feed trending topics into all aspects of your content and the algorithm will be able to track them.
The hashtag may not be dead but this change does reflect a new era of social media. One that frees your social feed from the spammy look of tag-heavy posts, and instead produces consumer-centric content that actually provides value.
Tune back in for next week’s Digital Dispatch: Brainlabs weekly deep dive into the latest updates on social media, cultural trends and internet zeitgeists. See you there!
