Posting on Instagram? You can now use only five hashtags per post and Reel

Instagram is limiting posts and Reels to five hashtags, with head Adam Mosseri saying creators should prioritise relevant content over generic tags that do little to boost reach.

Instagram is finally cracking down on hashtag stuffing. (Express Photo)

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has announced that the platform is limiting the number of hashtags to five per post and Reel. The change comes nearly a month after the Meta-owned platform removed the option that allowed users to follow hashtags.

While hashtags still play a role in discovery and search, Instagram has long struggled with hashtag stuffing – the practice of adding an excessive number of often unrelated hashtags to posts and Reels to game visibility, even when they have little to do with the actual content.

In a post on Instagram’s @creators account, the platform said that it found that “using fewer (up to 5), more targeted hashtags rather than generic ones can improve both your content’s performance people’s experience on Instagram.”

Also Read | Xiaomi unveils MiMo-V2-Flash, its new open-weight AI model to take on DeepSeek

The Meta-owned social media platforms also shared tips on optimising hashtag usage, advising creators to use hashtags that are directly relevant to the content they post. For instance, a beauty creator should stick to beauty-related hashtags to make it easier for users interested in such content to discover their posts.

The company added that generic or irrelevant hashtags, such as #reels or #explore do little to improve visibility in places like Explore and may, in fact, negatively impact a post’s performance.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri also took to the Instagram Advice channel to say that while hashtags do help with search, they “don’t increase your reach” and went on to say that creators should “focus on working out what kind of content resnoates with your audience.”

A few days ago, Instagram introduced a new feature that gives users more control over what appears in their Reels tab. Dubbed “Your Algorithm”, the functionality adds a new small icon with two lines topped with hearts at the top right corner, tapping on which will open a new page which will show what Instagram thinks is most important to a user.