How Many Hashtags Is Too Many?

We’ve all been there.

You’re captioning a social post, and before you know it, you’ve hashtagged the heck out of it.

It’s easy to overdo it with hashtags. They’re bold, they’re clickable, they’re trendy.

Unfortunately, there is such a thing as too many hashtags. If your caption looks like a long string of hashtags, this post is for you. Read on as we review hashtag best practices, and how to know when you’ve added just enough — or way too many.

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Can You Have Too Many Hashtags?

Some social media platforms have a firm hashtag limit, while others simply have a character limit and you can fill it with as many hashtags as your heart desires. Here’s an overview of the hashtag limit by platform.

Instagram: Up to 30 hashtags on a post, and up to 10 on a Story.
Facebook: No hashtag limit
LinkedIn: No hashtag limit
Pinterest: Up to 20 hashtags
TikTok: No hashtag limit, as long as it fits within the 300-character limit
Twitter: No hashtag limit, as long as it fits within the 280-character limit
YouTube: Up to 60 hashtags, although only the first three will show up above your video title

How Many Hashtags Should You Use?

Even if there’s no firm limit on hashtags, it doesn’t mean you should use as many as possible. Overloading your posts with hashtags can make them look spammy — both to the ranking algorithms and to your followers.

All that hashtag clutter can distract people from the point of your message, whether it’s to follow your brand or check back later for a special promo code. Using too many hashtags can dilute your message, and make your brand look less trustworthy.

Plus, on certain platforms, like Twitter and TikTok, your hashtags count toward your character count, so it’s especially important to be judicious.

So, what is the magic number when it comes to hashtags? It depends on the platform. In general, most platforms recommend using only a handful of hashtags. Facebook recommends using only “one or a few,” Twitter recommends up to two, and LinkedIn recommends up to three.

Research from Socialbakers found that one hashtag increases engagement for Facebook, but the engagement rate declines with each additional hashtag. Similarly, the engagement sweet spot for Twitter seems to be between two to five hashtags.

For Instagram, Hubspot says around 50% of posts use between one and three hashtags. Another study found that engagement increases with each hashtag you add — but only up to 11 hashtags. Once you add more than 11 hashtags, engagement declines.

Hashtag Best Practices

What’s a marketer to do? For an easy rule of thumb, follow these hashtag best practices:

When in doubt, use at least one hashtag. Regardless of the platform, adding at least one hashtag to your post seems to boost engagement.
For Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, limit yourself to three hashtags.
For Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, feel free to use more, but don’t get too crazy.
On YouTube, use as many hashtags as you want, up to 60. Make sure you place your top-priority hashtags in the first three spots, since those appear alongside your video.
Finally, test! The best way to know the optimal number of hashtags for your brand is to test and see what works. In general, somewhere between one and 15 hashtags seems to work well for most brands.

Need help getting your hashtag strategy just right? Contact Your Marketing People.