I remember the exact moment I realised I’d been playing a rigged game.
It was 2024, and I was sitting in a coffee shop in Birmingham, watching a mate of mine, let’s call him Dave, lose his mind over his Instagram analytics.
Dave ran a successful estate agency, and he’d been religious about his hashtag strategy.
Thirty hashtags. Every. Single. Post.
He’d spent hours researching them, organising them in his Notes app, rotating them.
“Look at this,” he said, shoving his phone in my face.
“I used to get 300 views from hashtags alone. Now I’m getting… seventeen.”
Seventeen.
The interesting part was that his overall engagement was actually UP.
Way up.
But it wasn’t coming from hashtags anymore.
It was coming from… well, he had no idea where.
Turns out, Instagram’s algorithm had already started ignoring most hashtags months earlier.
Dave just didn’t know it yet.
Fast forward to today, and Instagram’s finally said the quiet part out loud: five hashtags maximum.
That’s it.
No more #MortgageAdviceUK #FirstTimeBuyer #PropertyLadder #UKMortgages #HouseHunting spam posts.
But here’s the thing…
Most mortgage brokers will still rely on hashtags to try to get more views.
Instagram’s AI doesn’t need your hashtags anymore to figure out what your content is about.
It can READ your captions.
It can ANALYsE your images.
The AI categorises your content automatically, then shows it to people who’ve demonstrated interest in mortgage content through their behaviour.
The only hashtags that still have any pull are hyper-local ones.
Why?
Because AI needs help with LOCATION specificity, especially when you’re trying to reach people in a specific geographic area who might not follow you yet.
But even then, you know what works better than hashtags for local reach?
Actually creating content that mentions your location in natural, human language.
“Just helped another first-time buyer in Smithsville get the keys to their first home.”
So if you still think that hashtags are going to get you:
More views
More engagement
More business
Then think again.
It’s all about creating content your audience cares about.
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Chris