Table of Content
I have been picking hashtags for my own pages and a small stack of client accounts since the days when everyone crammed thirty tags into the first comment and hoped. So when Instagram quietly cut the cap to five in December 2025, most of the routine I had trusted for years stopped working overnight. There was no shortcut back. I had to open the in-app search on two fresh accounts, log post counts by hand, run the same five tags across batches of posts, and watch which ones actually sent me search traffic.
This guide is the process that came out of that testing. Not a recycled list of the best hundred tags that goes stale in a week, and not a tool ad. It is the exact method I now use to find tags that give a smaller account a genuine shot at being seen, on the platforms where hashtags still earn their slot.
SHORT VERSION Low competition now means a tag a small account can actually surface on, usually 10,000 to 100,000 posts, where the Top posts are not all million-follower accounts. Instagram allows five tags, TikTok and LinkedIn reward three to five. Relevance to your content beats size every single time. |
First, what actually changed
If you learned hashtags before 2025, your instincts are pointed at the wrong target. Two platform changes rewrote the job.
DECEMBER 2025 The five-tag cap Instagram moved from its long-standing 30-tag ceiling to a hard limit of five per post and Reel. Going over five can now reduce reach rather than help it, so every slot has to earn its place. | DECEMBER 2024 Follows removed Instagram removed the ability to follow a hashtag. A tag is no longer a feed people subscribe to, which is exactly why hashtags stopped being a distribution channel and became a labeling system. |
“Contrary to popular belief, hashtags are not a way to get more reach.” Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram |
Read that plainly. Hashtags now tell the algorithm and in-app search what your post is about. That reframes the whole task. You are not fishing for a viral tag anymore. You are handing the algorithm a precise label, and on the side, catching the small number of people who search that exact term with real intent. Both jobs reward small, specific, honest tags. Neither rewards big ones.
What “low competition” really means
Competition is not about a tag being small. It is about whether your post can hold a spot that people will ever see. Open any tag and look at the Top posts. If every one is a verified account with hundreds of thousands of followers, yours will sit near the bottom no matter how good it is. If you see accounts near your own size sitting in that Top row, you have a real shot. Post count is a fast proxy for that check, so here is the ladder I sort every candidate into.
| POST COUNT | TIER | VERDICT |
|---|---|---|
| 1M+ | Mega | Too crowded. Your post is buried within seconds. Skip these unless you already have serious reach. |
| 500K-1M | Big | Still very competitive. Occasionally worth one slot as a broad category label, never as your main play. |
| 100K-500K | Mid | Winnable with strong content. Good for a single category anchor tag in your set. |
| 10K-100K | Sweet spot | Where small and mid accounts land in Top posts. Active audience, real intent. ▶ START HERE |
| Under 10K | Micro | Very targeted, low volume, high intent. Great for community. Watch for near-dead tags under a few hundred posts. |
These bands shift by niche and by your account size. A 90,000-post tag can be easy in a quiet corner and brutal in beauty or fitness. Treat the numbers as a first filter, then confirm with the Top posts.
The method, step by step
This is the workflow I run for a new account or a new content pillar. It takes about an hour the first time and ten minutes once you have a library going.
STEP 1 Start from your niche’s best accounts List the 15 to 20 accounts one or two rungs above you that are clearly winning. Open their recent posts and write down every tag that appears more than once. These are pre-vetted for your exact audience, which saves you guessing. |
STEP 2 Mine the in-app search bar Type your core keyword into the platform search and read the autocomplete suggestions. Those are ranked by what people are searching right now, which is the closest thing to free demand data you will get without paying for a tool. |
STEP 3 Pull the post count on each candidate Open every tag and note its post count and whether recent posts are still flowing. Sort them into the ladder bands above. Drop anything with a dead recent feed or a Top row stacked with mega accounts. |
STEP 4 Check Top posts for accounts your size This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that matters most. If mid-size accounts are landing in Top, the tag is winnable today. If not, park it in a list and revisit once you have grown. |
STEP 5 Build a set of five honest labels Group your survivors into one set using the recipe in section six. One category anchor, two or three sweet-spot tags, one micro or community tag. Every tag has to describe the post accurately. |
STEP 6 Post, log, and cut the losers Run one set across several posts, then open your analytics and keep only the tags showing up as a traffic or search source. Replace the rest. Your own data beats any list on the internet. |
Free manual methods by platform
Every platform has its own free way to research, and the hashtag culture differs on each one. Here is where to look.
Instagram · search, then read the Top row
• Tap search, open the Tags tab, and type your niche keyword. The autocomplete shows related tags ranked by demand.
• Open each promising tag to see the post count and, more importantly, who is sitting in Top posts.
• Because discovery now leans on keyword search, favour tags that are also phrases real people type, a searchable term rather than a made-up slogan.
• Mirror your top 20 niche accounts and steal the tags that keep repeating across their winning posts.
TikTok · Creative Center plus your own analytics
• Use the search bar autocomplete, ranked by weekly search demand, then tap a tag to read its view count.
• Open the free TikTok Creative Center, filter hashtags by region and industry, and you get post count, trend over time, related tags, and top videos.
• Check TikTok Studio to see which tags already send you search traffic, then double down on those.
• Account authority counts here. A tag that works for a 500,000-follower account may flop on a new one, so test in small batches.
LinkedIn · specific beats broad
• LinkedIn is one of the few places hashtags still meaningfully help with topic grouping and discovery.
• Use three to five specific tags. A niche tag like #SaaSLeadership consistently beats a catch-all like #Leadership.
• Click the tag page and check its follower count to judge how crowded it is before committing.
Tools worth the time
Manual research is free and teaches you the culture of your niche, which is why I still start there. But tools save hours once you know what you are hunting for. These are the ones I keep coming back to. None of them replaces the in-app Top-posts check.
| TOOL | BEST FOR | WHAT IT SHOWS | COST |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flick | Instagram research | Up to 40 suggestions per search, each scored for competition and reach potential, plus banned-tag detection | PAID TIERS |
| TikTok Creative Center | TikTok validation | Official post counts, trend over time, demographics, related tags, top videos by region and industry | FREE |
| IQ Hashtags | IG analytics and audits | Tag performance, reach estimates, and account-level hashtag reporting | FREEMIUM |
| Metricool | All-in-one workflow | Scheduling, analytics, and hashtag tracking across platforms (IG hashtag tracking is a paid add-on) | FREEMIUM |
| Later | Suggestions while scheduling | Hashtag suggestions built into the scheduler, tuned to the three to five tag approach | FREEMIUM |
| All Hashtag | Fast idea generation | Keyword-based generator, no account needed. A starting point, not a decision-maker | FREE |
| RiteTag | Real-time prompts | Browser extension that surfaces tag suggestions live as you write | FREEMIUM |
The five-tag recipe
The old spray of thirty tags is gone. With five slots on Instagram and three to five on TikTok and LinkedIn, a set needs structure. This is the mix I use per post. Rotate a few of these sets so you are always testing.
| 1 | Category anchor from the Mid band (100K to 500K). One broad label that tells the algorithm the room you belong in. |
| 2-3 | Sweet-spot tags from the 10K to 100K band. The workhorses. Specific, active, and winnable for your size. |
| 1 | Micro or community tag under 10K, or your own branded tag. Low volume, high intent, and it aggregates your people. |
On TikTok, drop to one broad niche tag plus two rising specific ones and lean on keyword-rich captions and on-screen text to do the heavy lifting.
Validate before you commit
Before a tag earns a slot, it should clear all six of these. This is the checklist I run in the app in under a minute per tag.
✓ Post count fits your band. In your sweet spot for your account size, not a mega tag you will drown in. ✓ Accounts your size sit in Top. If mid-size posts are landing in Top, you can too. If it is all giants, park it. ✓ Recent posts are flowing. A live tag has fresh posts by the minute. If the newest is weeks old, it is dead weight. ✓ It matches your content exactly. Relevance beats size. A mismatched tag suppresses reach and confuses the algorithm. ✓ People actually search it. The best tags double as search keywords. If nobody types it, it only labels. ✓ It is not banned or restricted. Check a current banned list. One flagged tag can quietly cap a whole post. |
Mistakes that quietly cost reach
Copying a big creator’s set Their authority carries tags that will bury you. The same list on a new account produces nothing. | Chasing only mega tags #love, #fyp, and #viral are used millions of times a day. On a small account you disappear in seconds. |
Reusing one block forever Identical tags on every post can read as spammy and gives you nothing to test. Vary your sets and log results. | Bolting on trend tags An irrelevant trending tag pulls viewers who bounce instantly, which teaches the algorithm your post is off-topic. |
Overstuffing the slots Going past Instagram’s five can reduce reach. The cap is a filter for quality, not a target to max out. | Ignoring your own analytics Your top posts already show which tags pull search traffic. That is the highest-quality list you will ever have. |
Final VerdictWhat actually held up After a few months on the five-tag setup, the honest takeaway is that hashtag research matters less than it used to and relevance matters far more. The wins came from tags in the 10,000 to 100,000 band that matched the post almost word for word, plus one micro tag tied to my real community. The mega tags did nothing except waste slots. If I could hand a new creator one habit, it would be the Top-posts check: open the tag, look at who is winning, and only use it if people your size are in that row. Tools like Flick and the TikTok Creative Center are worth it once you are posting weekly, mostly because they save the manual counting. But the account I grew fastest was the one where I stopped chasing trends, labeled every post as accurately as I could, then read my own analytics every Friday and cut whatever was not pulling search traffic. That is the whole game now. Pick five honest labels, watch the data, keep the ones that work, and let the content carry the rest. |