How to Use Hashtags Correctly

What a hashtag actually does

A hashtag is a categorisation label. It tells a platform, and the people browsing it, what a post is about. It is not a growth mechanism on its own — it makes a post findable inside a topic, and findability only converts into reach when the post itself is worth watching.

This is why copying a block of unrelated popular tags rarely works. Mislabelled content is shown to an audience with no interest in it, which suppresses rather than boosts distribution.

Build a layered set

A reliable structure mixes three layers. Broad tags describe the general field and have enormous competition. Niche tags describe the specific subject and are where genuinely interested people browse. Branded or community tags describe you, your series or your event, and they compound over time as your library grows.

A useful default is a small number of broad tags, a larger group of niche tags, and one or two branded tags. The niche layer should always be the biggest.

• Broad: the field (#photography)
• Niche: the specific subject (#filmphotography, #35mmportraits)
• Branded: you or your series (#hashlyweekly)

Formatting habits that matter

Capitalise multi-word tags in camel case — #KeywordResearch rather than #keywordresearch. It reads more clearly and, importantly, screen readers announce camel-case tags as separate words. Remove punctuation and spaces, keep tags short enough to read at a glance, and never repeat the same tag twice in one post.

Finally, keep a small library of sets that you edit per post rather than pasting an identical block every time. Reusing one fixed block across unrelated posts is the fastest way to make your labels meaningless.