#GoodbyeHashtags

 

Hashtags. We’ve loved them for years. We’ve preached them for years. We’ve used them for years. But, guess what? The hashtag game is over. It’s dead. It’s gone. It’s phased out. It is no more.

We—Fahim and Marty—have taught classes on hashtags at national and regional industry events for nearly 10 years now. We’ve even hosted an audience-participation game show at a national convention focused on hashtags. Fahim has, in the past, worn a hashtag costume and used hashtag sticky notes, even gaining the nickname #HashtagFahim at one time. If you search Fahim’s primary hashtag, #FahimFix, or Marty’s, #AskUncleMarty, you’ll find hundreds if not thousands of things we’ve written, posted, or branded over the years.

Indeed, for 18 years, since 2007, hashtags have been a valuable search tool for social media and other online content. They’ve been added within and at the bottom of posts by companies, organizations, and individuals, large and small. We’ve all used them and many of us have also created them. They’re fun. They punctuate. They have, for nearly two decades, helped us find content on themes from #SmallBusinessSaturday to #Movember; from #CatsofInstagram to #WednesdayWisdom.

So, if hashtags are so awesome and have been heavily promoted by us, two of your most favorite business coaches (if we do say so ourselves) for a generation, why are we now declaring them over—dead, gone, phased out, no more? The answer can be expressed in two simple vowels: AI.

AI has changed the game in many, many ways; it has and continues to change our lives daily, innovating how we create, research, respond, and review. And now it’s taken over how we search.

AI now scans the text of each post. Not only that, it also scans each image and each video transcript to find keywords and search nuggets. AI now powers searches on Instagram, TikTok, X, and most other platforms. Hashtags are no longer used to search on the vast majority of media, so it’s time to put the nail in their coffin, say goodbye, shed a few tears, plant a memorial tree, and move on.

When Marty spoke a few weeks ago at AMBC’s Mile High Marketing Summit in Denver, he declared the hashtag game finished, much to many of the summit participants’ surprise. And last week, a channel that Fahim follows is also touting the death of hashtags in this very interesting post from last week: https://news.thepublishpress.com/p/should-you-stop-using-hashtags.

We will miss you, hashtags. We’re doing our best to break the habit of using you day in and day out. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. We thank you for your service and will remember you very fondly. In a resolution to move forward, make an intense 180, and not live in the past, Fahim and Marty now resolve to do our best to be hashtag-free.

For a final time, we thank you as #FahimFix and #AskUncleMarty, henceforth known simply as Fahim Fix and Ask Uncle Marty.

 

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Fahim Mojawalla is the Motivation and Mission Lead at AYM High Consultants. He loves what he does and would love to show you how to make 21st century sales and marketing easy, simply by being authentic, appreciative, respectful, responsive, empathetic, collaborative, and all-around awesome. Along with his wife Seema, he is an effervescent co-owner of Island Ship Center, the Spa of Shipping.

 

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Marty Johnson is the Communication and Vision Lead at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, and an editor, producing the mail and business center industry's leading magazine, MBC Today. In 2023, he sold his popular and growing brand, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office (now rebranded simply to Uncle Marty’s) and retired from shopkeeper life to focus on writing and coaching. Subscribe to his Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty.