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Instagram's new update to improve content discovery: Users can now add only five hashtags per post
Instagram said the use of “fewer” and “more targeted” hashtags could provide a boost to both the content's performance and “people's experience” on Instagram.
Instagram has rolled out a new update for its hashtag feature, putting a cap to its use in posts and reels.
The social media platform has announced that users will now be able to add a maximum of five hashtags to their post or reel.
While informing users about the new rule, Instagram said it was looking to “gradually update” the number of hashtags that users can include in a caption for a reel or post to five.
The platform also revealed the intent behind the limit, saying that the use of “fewer” and “more targeted” hashtags rather than generic ones could provide a boost to both the content's performance as well as “people's experience” on Instagram.
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Instagram further asked users to not “spam” the caption of their post or reel with too many generic or irrelevant hashtags like #reels and #explore. “Those types of hashtags don't actually help your content appear in places like Explore,” the platform said, adding that it could, however, “hurt” the users' content performance.
The platform has asked users to “be intentional” with the hashtags that they include, and suggested that they focus on those which are relevant to the content that they create.
“For example, if you're a beauty creator, use beauty-related hashtags to help people interested in beauty content find you,” Instagram said in a post on its ‘creators’ handle.
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The platform has started testing this change, which could prove to be a significant one for content creators, earlier this month. The company was reportedly experimenting allowing users to add only three hashtags to each post, a major shift from the status quo in place since 2011, according to an earlier HT report.
While Instagram had not made a formal announcement regarding this test, some Reddit users claimed that a few accounts were getting error messages while trying to add more than three hashtags to a new post.
The curbs did not affect all users, thus suggesting that Meta was testing the option with select users before deciding to rollout the limit across the platform.
