Hashtag

A hashtag is a word, or several words with no spaces, preceded by the pound sign: #hairdresser, #neapolitanpizza, #bolognabeautician. Writing it turns that bit of text into a clickable label that groups together every piece of content tagged the same way. In practice you're telling the platform, and anyone who stumbles across your content, what your post is about. It isn't a magic lever for visibility: it's a filing system, built to bring order to a huge mass of content.

Their weight has changed a lot over the years. They used to be the main channel for getting discovered by people who don't follow you; today Instagram and TikTok work out a post's topic on their own by reading the caption, the text inside the images, the audio of the video. Hashtags remain a useful signal, but they're no longer the visibility switch: if the content doesn't hold people in the first few seconds, no combination of hashtags will save it.

In practice it helps to think in groups. There are location tags (#modena, #brooklyn, #torontorestaurants), category tags (#hairdresser, #barbershop, #pizzeria), tags for the service or the problem you solve (#finehair, #nailextensions, #glutenfreepizza), and one with your business's name, which gathers customer photos in one place. Giant generic ones like #food or #hair generate volume but bring few real contacts: you're a drop in a river.

For a neighbourhood business the maths is simple: you don't need a big audience, you need the right one. Thirty people who live two stops away from you are worth more than three thousand curious strangers on the other side of the country, because only the first group can book or come in and buy. That's why category plus city is the most concrete choice you can make. Instagram allows up to thirty per post, but eight or ten well-chosen ones work better than the same identical block pasted every time.