# Do Hashtags Still Work on LinkedIn?

Source: https://www.flypost.io/learn/do-linkedin-hashtags-work
Author: Sam Cassman, Founder, Flypost
Last verified: 2026-10-12

Do hashtags still work on LinkedIn? No. When we compared 1,506 people's posts with hashtags against their own posts without them, hashtags didn't help at any number. One or two made no difference at all, and three or more cost about 7% of reactions.

Are you looking for a straight answer on whether hashtags still work on LinkedIn? It's a fair
question, because the advice hasn't moved in years. Almost every guide tells you to add three to
five, as if it were a rule. But when we went looking for the evidence behind that number, we
couldn't find any. Nobody seemed to have tested it, so we did.

Most people think hashtags help more people find your post, and that three to five is the sweet
spot. When we compared **thousands of creators' posts with hashtags against their own posts
without**, we found that hashtags don't help at any number. And three to five, the most recommended
range, is where they start to cost you.

In this article we'll cover how many hashtags to use, why they look like they work when they don't,
whether they hurt your reach, and what to do instead. Read on to find out more.

## How did we test whether LinkedIn hashtags work?

We compared each person with themselves. We found people who sometimes use hashtags and sometimes
don't, then compared their posts with hashtags against their own posts without. Same person, same
audience, same style of writing. The only thing that changed was the hashtags.

Why go to that trouble? Because the obvious test, comparing posts with hashtags to posts without,
compares **different people**. People who use lots of hashtags might be newer to LinkedIn, or post
more often, or write in a different way. Whatever difference you find, you've measured the people,
not the hashtags.

A tactic only counts as working if the same person does better with it than without it. That rule
is behind every number on this page, and the full details are in
[how we ran our LinkedIn algorithm study](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-algorithm-study-data#how-we-tested-the-linkedin-algorithm).

## How many hashtags should you use on LinkedIn?

None, or one or two if you like using them to organise your own posts. One or two hashtags made no
difference to reactions. Three to five cost about 8%, and six or more cost about 6%. There was no
number at which hashtags started to help.

Here's every number we could test, each compared with the same people's posts without hashtags:

**How hashtags changed the same person's reactions** (Reactions, compared with the same creator's other posts)

| Tactic | Reactions vs their own posts | Change in reactions | Creators tested | Who benefited |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1–2 hashtags | 1.00× | No change | 907 | 51% |
| Any hashtags at all | 0.96× | -4% | 1,506 | 47% |
| 6+ hashtags | 0.94× | -6% | 699 | 45% |
| 3–5 hashtags | 0.92× | -8% | 971 | 44% |

_Source: Flypost S6 · each creator compared with their own posts without hashtags, at least 3 posts each way, Oct 2025–Sep 2026_

| How many hashtags | People tested | Effect on their reactions | People who did better with them |
| ----------------- | ------------- | ------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| 1–2               | 907           | **No change**             | about half (51%)                |
| 3–5               | 971           | **About 8% fewer**        | 44%                             |
| 6 or more         | 699           | **About 6% fewer**        | 45%                             |
| Any at all        | 1,506         | **About 4% fewer**        | 47%                             |

To put that in everyday terms: if your posts typically get 30 reactions, adding four hashtags would
take that down to about 28. Not a disaster, but you're paying something for nothing.

Two things stand out.

**The recommended range is the one that costs you.**
[Sprout Social's hashtag guide](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/linkedin-hashtags/), updated May
2026, says to "limit yourself to three to five hashtags per post", and
[Hootsuite](https://blog.hootsuite.com/linkedin-hashtags/) recommends the same range. Neither shows
data for it. Three to five is exactly the range that lost the most in ours, about 8%.

**More isn't worse.** Six or more cost about 6%, no worse than three to five. The cost seems to kick
in once a post looks like a "hashtag post", and then it levels off.

> **About 4% fewer**
>
> What hashtags did to the typical person's reactions. Not a boost and not a ban: a small cost.
> **53% of people did worse with hashtags than without.**
>
> _Flypost original research · S6, each person compared with themselves · n=1,506 creators_

## Why do LinkedIn hashtags look like they work?

Because the quick way of measuring them is misleading. Compare posts with one or two hashtags to
posts without across different people, and hashtags seem to give about 10% more reactions. Compare
each person with themselves, and that boost disappears completely.

In the quick comparison on our July 2026 data, posts with one or two hashtags got a typical 44.5
reactions, against 40.3 for posts without. It's exactly the kind of number that ends up in a carousel about "hashtag
strategy". But when we compared the same people's posts, the difference was zero.

> This is the most common way LinkedIn statistics go wrong. You compare two different groups of
> people, then credit the difference to whatever you were looking at. The same mistake made long posts
> and Sunday posting look like winners, and both fell apart when we compared people with themselves.

We also checked the most obvious alternative explanation: that people who use hashtags just post
more images. They don't. In the July 2026 data, 55.8% of posts with hashtags had an image, against 53.4% of posts without.
That's too close to explain the result.

## Do hashtags hurt your reach on LinkedIn?

They cost a little engagement, but they don't kill your reach. With three or more hashtags, the same
person got about 6 to 8% fewer reactions. That's a small, steady cost, not the collapse some people
describe. And 47% of people still did better with hashtags than without.

There's one thing we can't tell you. **We measured reactions and comments, not how many people saw
each post.** Only LinkedIn can see that, and any outside study that claims to measure it is
estimating. So we can't say whether hashtagged posts were shown to fewer people, or shown to the
same people who then engaged a bit less.

If you have a good reason to use a hashtag, like a company campaign or an event, the cost is small
enough to accept. Just don't add them expecting a boost.

## Should you use trending hashtags on LinkedIn?

We couldn't test this, so we won't guess. Our data shows whether a post used hashtags and how many,
not which ones were trending on the day it went out. But since using hashtags at all didn't help,
we wouldn't spend time picking the right ones.

For trending hashtags to be worth it, picking the right one would have to make a big difference,
big enough to show up even though hashtags overall do nothing. We saw no sign of anything like that.

Searching LinkedIn to see what people in your field are talking about is still a good idea. Just do
it to find ideas for posts, not because the hashtag will do any work once you've added it.

## Do hashtags work better in the first comment?

We couldn't test this either. Our data covers the posts themselves, not the comments underneath,
so we can't see what anyone, including the author, wrote in the first comment. We'd rather say we
don't know than guess.

The same goes for the related idea of
[putting links in the first comment](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-algorithm-study-data#does-linkedin-penalise-posts-with-links).
It's one of the most asked-about questions we can't yet answer, because it needs comment data we
don't have yet.

## What works better than hashtags on LinkedIn?

Adding an image and writing about yourself. Attaching an image got about 35% more reactions than
the same person's text posts, and worked for nearly 3 in 4 people. Using "I", "my", "we" or "our" in
the first line got about a fifth more. Either one is worth far more than any hashtag decision.

_Change in reactions, compared with the same creator's other posts_

**Worth doing**

- Attach an image: +35% (Worked for 73% of 1,047 people)
- Use I, my, we or our in the first line: +19% (Worked for 7 in 10 of 1,734 people)
- Post a video: +15% (Worked for 60% of 618 people)
- Post a carousel: +11% (Worked for just over half of 224 people)

**Don't bother**

- 1–2 hashtags: No change (About half of 907 people did better)
- 3–5 hashtags: −8% (44% of 971 people did better)
- 6+ hashtags: −6% (45% of 699 people did better)
- Open with a question: −17% (Only about 1 in 3 of 685 people did better)

**An image** was the most reliable win in our whole study,
[about 35% more reactions than the same person's text posts](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-algorithm-study-data#do-linkedin-posts-with-images-get-more-engagement).
If you add one, [the image size you choose](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-post-image-size) decides how much of the
feed it fills, which matters far more than any hashtag.

**Writing about yourself** means using "I", "my", "we" or "our" in your first line. It got
[about a fifth more reactions](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-algorithm-study-data#do-first-person-linkedin-posts-perform-better),
and worked for 7 in 10 people in every format we tested.

## So should you ever use hashtags on LinkedIn?

1. **Don't add hashtags to get more reach.** At every number we tested, they did nothing or cost
   you. Yet about a third of posts in our study still used them.
2. **One or two are fine if you want them.** They cost nothing, so if you use a hashtag to find your
   own posts later, or your company runs a campaign tag, carry on.
3. **Stop at two.** Three to five is the most recommended range, and it's where the cost begins.
4. **Remember they take up space.** Hashtags count towards the
   [3,000-character post limit](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-character-limits#do-hashtags-and-mentions-count-toward-the-limit),
   and a block of them near the top pushes your opening line towards the "see more" cut-off.
5. **Put the effort into an image instead.** It's worth about 35% more reactions. No hashtag
   came close.
6. **Don't pad your post to make room.** [Length barely matters](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-post-length): long
   posts earned only about 14% more than the same person's short ones, and for text-only posts the
   result is unsettled.

> **See what shows before the cut-off**
>
> Our free LinkedIn character counter shows a live count against the post, headline and About limits,
> with the "see more" cut-off marked, so you can see how much of your opening a block of hashtags
> pushes out of view. No signup.
>
> [Try it free](https://www.flypost.io/tools/linkedin-character-counter)

## How we tested LinkedIn hashtags

We studied 2,500 English-speaking B2B creators with between 1,000 and 500,000 followers, spread
across regions and audience sizes. They were all individuals, not company pages. We collected their
posts in two sweeps, in July and October 2026, 180,000+ posts in all. The numbers on this page
cover the latest twelve months, October 2025 to September 2026: **116,000+ posts from 2,400+
creators**. Reposts were left out.

We counted reactions and comments, and only once a post was at least 14 days old, when the numbers
have settled. Where we say "typical", we mean the median, so one viral post can't skew the result.

To be included in a hashtag comparison, a person needed at least three posts with hashtags and three
without. That's why the numbers differ: 1,506 people qualified for the overall test, 907 for one or
two hashtags, 971 for three to five, and 699 for six or more. People whose results were exactly the
same either way weren't counted in the "did better" percentages.

What we couldn't see: how many people each post reached, what was written in the comments, and
which specific hashtags were used. This page is one finding from our
[LinkedIn algorithm study of 116,000+ posts](https://www.flypost.io/learn/linkedin-algorithm-study-data), which tested
more than a dozen common rules the same way.

## Frequently asked questions

### Do hashtags still work on LinkedIn?

No. We compared 1,506 people's posts with hashtags against their own posts without, and hashtags didn't help at any number. Overall, posts with hashtags got about 4% fewer reactions, and fewer than half of people (47%) did better with them.

### How many hashtags should you use on LinkedIn?

None, or one or two if you use them to organise your own posts. One or two made no difference across 907 people. Three to five cost about 8% of reactions and six or more cost about 6%. There was no number at which hashtags started to help.

### Is three to five hashtags the right number for LinkedIn?

No. Three to five is the range most guides recommend, and it's exactly the range that cost about 8% of reactions when we tested it on 971 people.

### Do hashtags hurt your reach on LinkedIn?

They cost a little engagement: about 6 to 8% fewer reactions once you use three or more. We measured reactions and comments, not how many people saw the post, because only LinkedIn can see that. So it's a small cost, not a ban.

### Should you use trending hashtags on LinkedIn?

We couldn't test this. Our data shows whether a post used hashtags and how many, not which ones were trending that day. Since using hashtags at all didn't help, we wouldn't spend time picking the right ones.

### Do hashtags work better in the first comment?

We couldn't test this either. Our data covers the posts themselves, not the comments underneath, so we have no evidence either way.

### What percentage of LinkedIn posts use hashtags?

About a third (33%) of the posts in our study used at least one hashtag. That's a lot of effort going into something that, at best, does nothing.

### What should you do instead of adding hashtags?

Attach an image, which got about 35% more reactions than the same person's text posts and worked for nearly 3 in 4 people. And use I, my, we or our in your first line, which got about a fifth more.

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Published by Flypost (https://www.flypost.io), the LinkedIn content studio. More guides: https://www.flypost.io/learn