Dropping all hashtags changed nothing — then helped

Dropping all hashtags changed nothing — then helped

Everyone says: "Three to five hashtags per post or you lose discoverability."

A marketer ran 30 posts with 5 curated hashtags, then 30 with zero. Same topics, same weeks of the cycle.

The claim: hashtags are a reach lever.

Impressions were statistically flat — 2,240 with, 2,280 without. Hashtag-driven impressions in the breakdown: under 2% of total. Nobody browses hashtag feeds here.

What's true: the zero-hashtag posts looked cleaner and got marginally more profile clicks, probably because the post ended on the idea instead of a tag-cloud.

Hashtags aren't poison. They're just inert — a habit imported from Instagram that does almost nothing on this platform.

Stop tuning a dial that isn't connected to anything.

The effort's better spent on line one.