Hashtags Are Not Dead: Here's How to Use Them in 2025 - Good Content with Shannon McKinstrie

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Hashtags Are Not Dead: Here's How to Use Them in 2025"

Podcast Information:

Title: Good Content with Shannon McKinstrie
Host: Shannon McKinstrie
Episode Title: Hashtags Are Not Dead: Here's How to Use Them in 2025
Release Date: January 28, 2025

Introduction

In the January 28, 2025 episode of Good Content with Shannon McKinstrie, host Shannon delves into the enduring relevance of hashtags in social media marketing. Amidst rampant misinformation and shifting platform algorithms, Shannon seeks to clarify the role of hashtags and provide actionable strategies for content creators aiming to enhance their online presence.

Debunking the Myth: Hashtags Are Dead

[02:15] Shannon begins by addressing a pervasive rumor: that hashtags are no longer effective on platforms like Instagram. She asserts, “Hashtags are not dead,” emphasizing that neither she nor her colleague Adam Aseri would propagate such claims without substantial evidence. Shannon shares her frustration with the constant barrage of misleading information from self-proclaimed experts, stating, “Everyone is on edge right now. Everyone is stressed out... spreading these lies on Instagram and distract people from actual marketing strategies.”

The Power of Hashtags: Personal Experience

To illustrate her point, Shannon recounts her recent experimentation with longer Instagram reels. [04:30] She mentions, “I posted a two-minute reel, and within 15 hours, it garnered almost 30,000 views. Typically, I see about 30-40,000 views within 24 hours.” These numbers challenge the notion that hashtags diminish reach, as her reels containing multiple hashtags still perform exceptionally well.

Effective Hashtag Strategies

Niche Over Size

Shannon emphasizes the importance of using niche hashtags over overly broad ones. [07:50] She explains, “Years ago, we used niche hashtags to survive in an oversaturated market. Now, with the advent of reels, the landscape has changed, but niche hashtags remain crucial for targeting specific audiences.”

Specificity Is Key

Shannon advises creators to align their hashtags closely with the content of their posts. [15:20] For instance, if a reel is about Instagram growth, appropriate hashtags would include #InstagramGrowth, #IGGrowth, and #InstagramStrategy. This specificity ensures that the algorithm accurately categorizes the content, making it discoverable to the right audience.

Balanced Hashtag Usage

Rather than adhering to a rigid number of hashtags, Shannon encourages experimentation. [18:45] “Don’t be scared to test, don’t be scared to see what hashtags do best for you. You wanna use three hashtags. Cool. You wanna use 15, like I did.” The key is to find a balance that works for each individual account and its unique audience.

The Role of Keywords

Shannon highlights the symbiotic relationship between hashtags and keywords. [21:10] She states, “Your hashtags and your keywords work together to tell the algorithm what your content is about so it shows it to the right people.” Incorporating relevant keywords in the hook, caption, and script of a post enhances its visibility and engagement potential.

Real-World Examples of Successful Hashtag Use

Healthcare Professional Example

Shannon analyzes a high-performing healthcare reel with 88,000 likes and 32,000 shares. [25:00] The reel’s hook included keywords like “trauma healthcare worker,” and the accompanying hashtags were highly specific (#EMS, #TraumaHospital, #EmergencyMedicine). These targeted hashtags ensured the content reached professionals and individuals interested in healthcare topics.

Interior Design Example

Another example involves an interior designer’s reel about kitchen renovations. [30:15] The use of hashtags such as #KitchenDesign, #MarbleKitchen, and #ColonialHome effectively connected the content with users searching for specific kitchen renovation ideas, demonstrating the efficacy of well-chosen hashtags.

Leveraging Tools for Keyword Research

Shannon advocates for utilizing tools like ChatGPT and TikTok to discover relevant keywords. [35:40] For example, by prompting ChatGPT with “What are some keywords for kitchen design?”, Shannon obtained a list including “modern kitchen design,” “rustic kitchen ideas,” and “minimalist kitchens.” Similarly, TikTok serves as a valuable platform for observing trending keywords within specific niches.

Addressing Algorithm Misconceptions

A common concern among creators is that engaging with content outside one's niche might negatively impact reach. Shannon dispels this myth. [40:25] “I hate that people have spread these silly rumors that if you engage with stuff outside of your niche, the algorithm is going to punish you and not show your stuff to your people.” She explains that the algorithm is designed to surface content based on user interests, not to penalize creators for diverse engagements.

Shannon provides a personal anecdote, describing her own Explore page filled with varied interests like food, mom humor, and reality show gossip, none of which directly relate to her marketing content. This diversity does not hinder her content's performance but rather supports its discovery by a broader audience interested in marketing.

Conclusion: Embrace Hashtag Usage

In wrapping up, Shannon firmly reinstates the value of hashtags in social media strategy. [45:10] “Hashtags are not dead. And the moment they are, I will be the first to let you know. I promise.” She encourages creators to continue using hashtags judiciously, test different approaches, and focus on specificity to leverage the full potential of their content.

Shannon concludes with a heartfelt message, affirming that the right audience is out there and that understanding and utilizing hashtags and keywords effectively can bridge the gap between content creators and their ideal followers. “Your people are out there. They want to find you,” she affirms, underscoring the importance of persistence and informed strategy in social media growth.

Key Takeaways:

Hashtags Remain Effective: Contrary to rumors, hashtags are still a valuable tool for increasing reach and engagement on platforms like Instagram.
Use Niche and Specific Hashtags: Align hashtags closely with the content to target the right audience and enhance discoverability.
Incorporate Relevant Keywords: Keywords in hooks, captions, and scripts work synergistically with hashtags to optimize content performance.
Leverage Tools for Research: Utilize resources like ChatGPT and TikTok to identify trending and relevant keywords within your niche.
Dispel Algorithm Myths: Engaging with diverse content does not harm your reach; algorithms prioritize user interests and relevant content.
Experiment and Adapt: Continuously test different hashtag strategies to determine what works best for your unique audience and content type.

By following these strategies, content creators can effectively navigate the evolving social media landscape and continue to grow their presence with confidence.

Notable Quotes:

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00]: “Hashtags are not dead. And the moment they are, I will be the first to let you know. I promise.”
Shannon McKinstrie [07:50]: “Niche hashtags remain crucial for targeting specific audiences.”
Shannon McKinstrie [15:20]: “Your hashtags and your keywords work together to tell the algorithm what your content is about so it shows it to the right people.”
Shannon McKinstrie [21:10]: “Incorporating relevant keywords in the hook, caption, and script of a post enhances its visibility and engagement potential.”
Shannon McKinstrie [40:25]: “If you engage with stuff outside of your niche, the algorithm is going to punish you and not show your stuff to your people.” [Clarification: This is her debunking of a myth, emphasizing that this is not true.]

Timestamp Highlights:

00:00: Introduction and context setting.
02:15: Debunking the myth that hashtags are dead.
04:30: Personal experience with hashtag effectiveness.
07:50: Importance of niche hashtags.
15:20: Role of specificity in hashtag usage.
18:45: Encouragement to experiment with hashtag quantities.
21:10: Synergy between hashtags and keywords.
25:00: Healthcare professional example.
30:15: Interior design example.
35:40: Utilizing ChatGPT and TikTok for keyword research.
40:25: Addressing misconceptions about algorithm penalties.
45:10: Conclusion and reaffirmation of hashtag value.

By following Shannon McKinstrie’s insights and strategies outlined in this episode, listeners can confidently harness the power of hashtags to elevate their social media presence and achieve their marketing goals in 2025 and beyond.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Foreign. I am your host, Shannon McKinstry. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never ending content creation, guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked Good Content well. Hey, friend. We are finally working on the podcast room. It is a hot mess and I just can't concentrate in there right now. So greetings from my sunroom. So last week we talked about all the crazy changes that Instagram did and some people are very upset. We just gotta roll with it, right? I think the dust is settled. Everyone's fine now. We got our grids, everything's cool. So I did test out a longer reel last night. I actually posted it. I think it's about two minutes actually. Let me see. It is right at the 2 minute mark. So far it's almost at 30,000. And again, it's. It's only been up about 14, 15 hours. That's about typical for me. I'm usually about 30, 40,000 views within 24 hours, typically. And then they go up from there. So I'm not saying anything drastic, but I'll keep an eye on it. And I'm probably gonna do one more that's a little longer and see how they do. So just kind of fun experiment. And let's talk about what the reel was about because I'm doing another one today because, you guys, as we ended 2024, I was like, oh my gosh, the nonsense has died down. There really hasn't put in so much noise with crazy, crazy advice that makes no sense, right? That social media managers and marketers who have been doing this forever. We're all DMing each other. Like, who is saying this stuff? I get DMS all day long being like, hey, so and so said hashtags are no longer or any content with hashtags isn't being pushed out anymore. That's the DM I got. So I did a reel on that last night, which was about two minutes long. You guys, I've had two reels go viral in the past few weeks. Both had eight plus hashtags. If hashtags were ruining reach, then that wouldn't have happened. Okay, so let's talk hashtags first, right? This is the big rumor. And guess what? If Instagram phases out hashtags, you'll hear it from me first and Adam Aseri first. Not some random person who says they're an expert and just wants to sell a course. And I digress. So I will say, years ago, as A social media manager, this stuff would float and my clients would send it to me and be like, shan, let's stop doing this. Because someone said, and I'm like, you guys, I'm the one managing 10 plus accounts at different industries. Trust me, they're lying. I've been dealing with it so long that I'm finally just. I'm just done. I'm tired. So I have taken upon myself for years to debunk myths, and now I'm on a rampage, if you, if you will. Because I'm just like, everyone is on edge right now. Everyone is stressed out. And then you guys want to come on here and spread these lies on Instagram and distract people from actual marketing strategies. And I was also like, we're talking hashtags. Like, hashtags are like the least of people's worries. So with that said, I did some digging on threads, asking people what they thought. Have they noticed anything with hashtags? And the Instagram accounts I still manage, meaning I'm the one behind the account, not the business owner. Both are hyperlocal, right? Two of the ones that I manage are hyperlocal. Those local hashtags help so much because one, it helps the algorithm know who to push it out to, and it just helps categorize it. And anyone searching hashtags, they'll see it. So some people said, I stopped using hashtags and my reach got better. But here's the thing that I always tell people. We can never definitively say it was because of the hashtag or it was because of this. Maybe your hooks got better, maybe the keywords got better, right? But here's the thing. Someone chimed in and was like, I think what it is, and I think this person is right. He said, the people who stopped using them and are starting to see more reach were probably not using hashtags correctly to begin with. So now it's helping. And I was like, that actually makes so much sense. So years ago, we used to call them niche hashtags, right? We're like, we were. We really doubled down on niche hashtags. Hashtags. This is back in like 2019 ish. And you wanted smaller hashtags and you would maybe throw in two large ones. Like, that was my mathematical equation for myself. Like, I would do 20 hashtags and I try to make like 80% of them really niche. I'd throw in a couple medium sized ones, meaning like around 500,000 posts and then over a million. I'd throw in like two or so. Because back then you guys, it was not an even playing field. Only the big time creators were actually getting seen. So us little guys were fighting for our lives to get in the newsfeed. You know, the Explore page back then. Now we have a lot more opportunity to get in front of people because of reels. But so the niche hashtags are where we kind of lived to kind of grow our followings. Anyway, that's how it was. Now you kind of actually large hashtags. It was what, like three years ago, they announced like, oh, large hashtags. Now smaller creators will be seen in large hashtags. I won't bore you with the details. It works totally different now. If you know, you know, if you've been growing since then, you know, then we all switched to using more like maybe an even niche medium large. Now I'm like, doesn't matter what you want to do. You don't have to worry about the size of the hashtag as much as you used to. Like, you really used to have to worry about that. Like if it was oversaturated, you're kind of like, no. Especially if you were less than 10,000 followers, you're like, no, I'm not going to show up there now. It's okay. Okay, so what my shift in hashtag strategy a couple years ago was I would use Instagram ones, social media ones, content creation ones, small business ones. But I did. It didn't matter if they were less, you know, if they were tiny, small, whatever. So what I do now is if my Instagram reel or carousel is about growing on Instagram, my hashtags are Instagram growth, IG growth, how to grow on Instagram, Instagram strategist, Instagram strategy, Instagram marketing. Right. If it's about reels, my hashtags are hashtag reelstips, hashtag reels tipstrategy hash. You see what I'm saying? Like, I make sure that my hashtags are very niche to the reel itself. And I will do this sometimes. Cause again, I like to test stuff. I'll put throw in social media marketing. But I'm like, no, I think that's the big thing. You want it to be so specific. So it's like, what are the words that someone would be searching for that reel? If you're a nutritionist and you're making a dinner, I would do high protein dinner. Let's see actually. Oh, let's. Let's have some fun nerding out. Here I go. High protein hashtag. I typed in the search. High protein 2.8 million views. I would use it five years ago. It would have been like too big. Isn't that funny? Changes. But hashtags still work the same way. You use em to search, et cetera. High protein meals, high protein diet. Those are ones I would use. Because if my reel is about a high protein thing, that's gonna be my hashtags and then I'll throw in like maybe your hook also said as a mom of four mom hacks, like whatever it is. Right. I really hope that makes sense, especially if you're on YouTube, like comment away like I love answering questions over there. Or shoot me a DM if you have questions. But that's what I mean. Same as you want to focus on keywords on screen verbally. Your script, quote, unquote, your real script, your caption, your carousels, you want those to be keyword rich. I get a lot of questions about keywords, so let me just talk about them for a second. Let's say I'm gonna find, actually I'm gonna find a really high performing reel and we're gonna talk about the hashtags. He is a healthcare, it says on his hook. And I'll send this to Steph. So it's in the show notes so you guys can look. Cause again, if hashtags were an issue, this reel wouldn't have done as well as it did. It has 88, 000 likes, 32, 000 shares in the hook. It says over his head, things I'll never do as a level one trauma healthcare worker. So he's giving advice on like things he wouldn't advise people do. So obviously those are key words. Healthcare, trauma. This helps the algorithm understand what his video is about. His caption then says ambulance has the word ambulance, blah, blah, blah. So again, little keywords. So now the algorithm knows this is about your health. Okay, hashtags ems, hashtag trauma hospital, hashtag emergency medicine, hashtag emergency room, hashtag healthcare, hashtag healthcare professional, hashtag ER nurse, hashtag ambulance, hashtag hospital life. He didn't do hashtag pediatrician because he's not talking to children and parents. He's talking to adults in this one. And here's another one. 15,000 likes. Sending it to Steph. It says on the screen, guess how tall our kitchen ceiling is. And then they kind of go through a whole story of what they did with their kitchen. Okay, what are keywords there? So going back to the healthcare guy, if I'm someone who's been searching health related stuff, Instagram is possibly going to show me that reel because it knows it's looking at everything we're looking at. It's also going to show it to people in his field and they're going to comment and engage with it too, to give their two cents. Right, so this one for the interior designer, tall ceilings keyword. So if I am renovating a house or you're trying to figure out how to decorate and I search tall ceiling, this likely could pop up. That's what I mean. So what are people searching for? You want to make sure those words are in your hook, they're in your caption, they're in your script. Okay, so lastly, she had 15,000 likes. Let's see, hashtags, kitchen design, kitchen details, cream kitchen, marble kitchen. Hashtag heart of the home. Hashtag colonial style. Hashtag colonial home. She has some extra ones, but still, when you look at the design of this home and the purpose of her page, which is colonial style, it all tells the algorithm what this account and posts is about. Now, she threw in some, definitely a little. Few extra ones. So again, it just shows you don't be scared to test, don't be scared to see what hashtags do best for you. You wanna use three hashtags. Cool. You wanna use 15, like she did. And like, I typically do. Do it. The biggest thing, guys, is all these things are out there to just distract you. Do what's best for you. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to chat GP if you're still unsure about keywords in your field, things like that. Which is again, why I stress specificity so much on this podcast and on Instagram and everywhere else. I stress specificity because it helps the algorithm, but it also grabs attention to your audience. So if you want to lean on things like Chat G, B, T, say actually, let's do it right now. I'm curious. I'm going to say chatgpt. What are key words? And I wouldn't just say, for home design, you want to have, like, different for kitchen, Renault. I'm just curious. Enter. Got it. All right, I typed in, what are some keywords for kitchen design? I got, ooh, this is fun. I got modern kitchen design, contemporary kitchens, rustic kitchen ideas, minimalist kitchens. So again, you can make a list of all these so that you have these words. They also have features and elements. Keywords, kitchen island ideas, backsplash trends. So again, know all the keywords in your niche. Another place I like to go is TikTok. So literally just search your niche But I think the best place to start, especially if you're just starting out and you're like, I don't know where the keywords are, what think what are people searching? And lean on ChatGPT for it. Go to TikTok and as long as you have a good mix of keywords in your captions, your hooks, all that and a mix of hashtags, the algorithm is going to know exactly what your content is about and it's going to show it to more people who are interested in that content. Remember, it used to be a more so relationship based feed. It is in a way still, but it's definitely more interest based now. That's why when I'm scrolling Explore, scrolling the real estate, it's a bunch of things to do in North Carolina with your family. It's a bunch of food. It's like stuff I'm interested in. And let me end with this. I was hosting a training for a membership last week, earlier this week and someone asked like I'm scared to engage with stuff outside of my niche. I don't want to mess up the algorithm. And I again, I hate that people have spread these silly rumors that if you engage with stuff outside of your niche, the algorithm is going to punish you and not show your stuff to your people. My Explore page is based on what I'm interested in. It is food, it is toddler mom humor, it is reality show gossip and Jimmy Fallon. It is coats I can buy, it's a mom eating Chipotle making a joke. More girl mom stuff. Valentine's sweaters at Target. Is any of that Instagram? Is any of that marketing? No, but my content goes out to people who want marketing. Our algorithms are trained to show us content we want to see and engage with because they want to keep us on the app. Your hashtags and your keywords work together to tell the algorithm what your content is about so it shows it to the right people. Hashtags are not dead. And the moment they are, I will be the first to let you know. I promise. Hashtags are not ruining your post. If you do find that your content does better without them, then don't use them. If you're like me and hashtags have helped you for years, I can't tell you how many times people have told me they found me through a hashtag, keep using them. I found my hairdresser through a hashtag. I found my bookkeeper through a hashtag. I found our house painters through a hashtag. I found my business partner through hashtag, like, you know, I get a little upset when people say they're not working. So there you go. That's the story on hashtags. Thanks for listening to me rant about hashtags, but I'm telling you, friend, I hope you took something away, whether it's hashtags, keywords. Your people are out there. They want to find you. So this is a really good thing to start studying and understanding, and I hope this helped you. Love you, friend.