As the end of the experimenting with my social media prototype draws near, I find myself learning more about the hashtag mechanics on TikTok.

While hashtags do help with increasing one’s discoverability, it seems that the TikTok algorithm tends to avoid promoting posts that are riddled with hashtags. That is not to say that hashtags should not be used at all, though; they should be used extremely sparingly. For instance, my earlier TikToks, which include only 3-4 hashtags, received more views and likes, as compared to my more recent TikToks, which include 5-6 hashtags.

To add, I came across a TikTok creator who experimented with the use of hashtags. He uploaded this same TikTok twice – one with a caption and hashtags, and the other without, asking users to like and comment on the post that they came across first. The post without a caption was received with more likes and comments, proving that the infamous #fyp or #foryoupage hashtag, that creators use to get on users’ news feeds, does practically nothing.

On the other hand, hashtags can receive upwards of a billion views, so it would also be wise to stay updated on trending hashtags and incorporate them into one’s content. This is also a good way to kill two key factors with one stone — timeliness and discoverability.

In short, it would be wise to simply omit the aforementioned hashtags, as they do not aid in promoting content to news feeds, and stick to using 2-3 of the most relevant hashtags possible.

Word count: 254 words.