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Should you bother using hashtags?
There have been many stories floating throughout different LinkedIn communities about the efficiency of hashtags in the app and if you should even bother using hashtags in your LinkedIn postings anymore.
As you may recall, LinkedIn did not previously allow hashtags; however, in 2018, the platform not only restored hashtag discoverability, but also began pushing hashtag use in an effort to encourage more users to manually categorize their posts.
The idea is that with improved content segmentation, LinkedIn will be able to present more users stuff that they are interested in. However, as algorithms have advanced, the necessity for hashtags has decreased because social platform systems are now much better at capturing the entire context of a post’s text, including pictures, user history, and all keywords.
In other words, hashtags are less significant because most of the time, key mentions and indications are already present in the message, which is sufficient to ensure that the system displays your article to the most interested audiences.
An Example:
In principle, this means that LinkedIn wouldn’t need someone to add a repeated hashtag like the one above because the system would recognize the “Meta” mention in the text.
A word from LinkedIn
“Using hashtags can be a helpful tool for viewers to easily identify what a post is about and find other related posts. However, it’s important to use hashtags that are closely related to the topic of the post for them to be most effective. In addition to hashtags, we also consider conversation topics and keywords to help surface relevant information for professionals looking to advance in their careers.”
So LinkedIn recommends using just relevant hashtags to improve efficacy, but it’s unclear whether you need to include them if the keyword/s are already included in the post.
But:
“When searching for conversations on a specific topic you can use topics or hashtags.”
So it appears that LinkedIn is no longer dependant on hashtags to maximize discovery; however, you should be mindful of which keywords are used in your primary article, and consider how you may tap into the appropriate conversation streams based on your target subjects.
How do you do this?
By following famous pages and people in your business category, you’ll gain a better understanding of the prevalent hashtags associated with your industry. You might also search for hashtags in the app.
I’m betting AI is a greater trend now than it was three years ago, but this provides some more background for the app’s more popular discussion themes.
So, should you use hashtags on LinkedIn?
I believe that hashtags in the app are less relevant, and as LinkedIn expert Richard van der Blom has pointed out, hashtags aren’t helping to extend post reach in the app as much as they once did.
According to van der Blom’s research, adding 3-10 hashtags in LinkedIn posts increased your reach significantly over the last few years. However, hashtags no longer provide any additional reach.
This appears to indicate that LinkedIn is gradually de-emphasizing them as a discovery tool, as part of a larger focus on subject relevancy rather than boosting reach.
As explained by LinkedIn:
“If you share a post about getting a new job, and people like that post, that doesn’t mean their entire networks will also see the post in their feed since it probably isn’t as relevant to their connections as it is to them. However, if you share a post outlining advice about tackling a workplace challenge it could be seen both by your network and people outside your network who might find it helpful to their career growth.”
LinkedIn clearly states that its system “is not designed for virality,” therefore hashtags are not expected to work on LinkedIn in the same manner that they do on other apps.
That could be one of the reasons LinkedIn is de-emphasizing hashtags in order to prevent individuals from manipulating the system, but the basic line is that you probably don’t need to be as concerned about hashtags on LinkedIn as you were in the past, depending on the context.
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