If you post to TikTok regularly, you may have seen this notification pop-up over the last few weeks.
Yes, as per this example from user @justgee92, some users are now being told that TikTok has instituted a five hashtag limit on posts, restricting the amount of topic tags that you can append to your TikTok clips.
Which probably makes sense.
Given the evolution of social platform algorithms, which detect user interest based on their engagement, hashtags are less important for targeting than they once were, while more and more people also now rely on the same to show them content that they’ll like, as opposed to manually searching via manual tags either way.
Indeed, most platforms are revising their approach to hashtags, with X removing them from ads, LinkedIn deprioritizing hashtags for discovery, and Threads limiting its own topic tags to one per post. Instagram has also been experimenting with a five hashtag limit, with the idea being that any more than this leads to misuse, and spamming popular or unrelated tags in an effort to boost reach.
Which, as Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has repeatedly noted, doesn’t work either way.
And now, it seems like TikTok is also aligning with this shift, by manually limiting how many tags users can add to their clips.
TikTok hasn’t provided an official explanation for the change, though a user on Reddit claims that TikTok has advised that it’s change in approach for hashtags “aims to improve the user experience” by reducing clutter on posts in-stream, combating spammy usage of tags, and “improving the relevance of content discovery,” through more focused use of tags by creators.
So, fewer hashtags for your TikTok clips, meaning that you’ll need to conduct more research into the best tags for your updates.
You can dig into popular rising hashtags on TikTok via its TikTok Trends dashboard.
We’ve asked TikTok for more information on the update, and whether it’s being rolled out to all users, and we’ll update this post if/when we hear back.
