Why Instagram hashtags are dying - and why LinkedIn is your biggest missed opportunity

Things are changing fast in the social media world. This episode cuts through the noise so you can stay ahead without spending hours keeping up yourself.

This is the very first Coffees & Content episode under the new In Her Empire Era name, and we're kicking it off exactly how we mean to go on. Quick, no-fluff, and actually useful.

In this episode:

• The Instagram hashtag shakeup - what's changing, why it's been coming for a long time, and what three hashtags you'd actually keep
• Why caption quality now matters more than any hashtag strategy ever did
• LinkedIn's biggest update for business owners - and why ignoring this platform is closing the door on revenue before you've even tried
• Why your LinkedIn profile needs to work like a landing page
• How to show up on LinkedIn with a point of view that builds real authority over time

Links:

• Join the IHEE WhatsApp community
• Follow on Instagram: @inhererampireerapod
• Find Loren on LinkedIn: Loren Tomlinson
• Visit us at: inherempireera.com

Loved this episode? Leave a review - it would mean the world!!

If this episode gave you a breakthrough moment, share your key takeaway on Instagram and tag @inhererampireerapod. Your insights might just shape a future episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello, and happy Monday. Welcome to the very first ever episode of Coffees and Content under the new podcast name of In Who Empire Era. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. I am really, really excited for today's episode. Basically, what you can expect from this episode is the same energy as always, the same commitment, of course, to keeping you across everything, and a really nice bite-sized episode for your Monday mornings that's easy, digestible, a really quick, no-fluff episode. So I'm going to get straight into it. So coffee's and content, as we've discussed, is the former name of this whole podcast. But I think where it really shines the most is in these little bite-sized segments that I'm going to be sharing with you every Monday. So what you can expect with your Monday drop is a real quick recap, a nice like 10 to 15 minute episode every Monday where what I'm going to do is bring forward all of the most prominent conversations that are happening in the marketing space. All of the things that I really feel like as a founder, as a marketer, as a business person are really important to know when it comes to growing and scaling a business. Whether it's your business or if it's a business that you work in, these are some of the most important things that I think are really valuable for you to know. And what I want to do is take these episodes beyond just your standard tips and tricks. I'm not just going to share with you, here's the platform update, go have fun with it. What we're really going to do is in these very quick bite-size episodes, break down what the change is or what the update is that's happened. I want to talk through what it means for you, and I want to share with you what to do about it. Because I don't know if you've been keeping up with social media, but things are changing at a rapid pace. So what I'd really like to make sure that this episode segment, if you will, allows for is just a bit of a conversation between you and I where I can keep you updated with everything that I have been noticing while working within the agency, with having conversations with other marketers, obviously bringing forward all of the latest and greatest that I pick up at all the conferences that I attend. So this is really where you can get like a quick bite-sized Monday morning episode. So you can really feel like you're starting off your Monday first and foremost on a really exciting note because you're hanging out with me. And it also means that we can start off our weeks with a bit of power, a bit of punch, a bit of excitement, and we can actually go into the week feeling like, yeah, Monday morning's only just kicked off, but I'm actually really on top of it. So grab your morning cup of coffee and let's dive straight into the episode. The first thing that I want to discuss in today's episode is the lovely Instagram. And I found this piece of news really interesting because it's something that for those of you who have been listening to this podcast for a long time, you will know that I have some very, very strong opinions on this one. And that is the hashtag shakeup that's been happening. So basically, what's been happening as of recent is Instagram users are now starting to get in-app notifications suggesting that the hashtag limit might be dropping down from 30 to just three. So at the moment, we don't currently have any updates or any confirmation from Meta as of yet. However, it is very, very highly likely that this is coming and it's going to be rolling out. So what this means for you is the days of stuffing 30 hashtags into a post and hoping for the best are basically done. In my opinion, they have been dead and were dying for a very, very long time. The reason being is I think a lot of this started to change when Instagram became search engine optimized. And for those of you who haven't heard any of uh the previous conversations I've had across this podcast on that, what that essentially means is anything that is in your bio, uh, your Instagram handle as well, and most importantly, your captions are all search engine optimized. So hashtags were really in there kind of in the thick of their prime, if you will, when uh the captions were not searchable. You couldn't search the words in your caption. And so we had to rely on hashtags to be the thing that if somebody was going to the explore page and looking in that search bar section, they would very easily be able to identify your post. And Instagram could obviously like group them all together. Now platforms have evolved, and Instagram is a lot more smarter and it's just a lot more further developed. And so what happens now is rather than having to just utilize hashtags, Instagram can essentially look at all of the words that you're using in your caption and really pick out the most important ones. So as far as what my thoughts are and what what my stance is on podcasts on hashtags is really making sure that if you're using them, they are for words or for certain things that just don't quite have a place in your caption, but are incredibly important to, I guess, support the image or the carousel or the reel that you are referencing above. So that's where I feel like they're important. The days of doing hashtag inspire, hashtag business, hashtag business owner. Like those days are gone. And so if you are still currently using hashtags, I would really start to look at, I'd recommend just having a look at where, where you're going with this, what the plan is. Are we actually using effective hashtags? Are you wasting time doing hashtag strategies and searching all this stuff? Because I mean, even when it comes to looking at like ChatGPT and Claude and the way that they can scrape the internet for so much information. Like I can put in into Claude something like, go and find me what such and such does on Instagram. And it will be able to scrape captions. It'll be able to, it's slowly starting to be able to scrape images as well and videos, and it can feed you back all of this information. So utilizing hashtags has already been, like I said, dead and dying for a while, but it also signals that Instagram are no longer deeming this important. And I think that is a huge indication of when something is no longer working, is the platforms themselves literally just get rid of it. So what to do about this? So if you are an avid hashtag lover and user, I really want you to start thinking about what three hashtags would actually really represent your business and your content if we do end up going down to three. I also want you to be thinking about how Discovery, as I've mentioned on Instagram, is really moving towards their interest-based and AI-driven recommendations, which what that essentially means in a nutshell is that the quality of your content matters so much more than your hashtags. I really want you to be thinking about every time you write a caption, does this really give value to my reader? Does this really provide some information or inspiration or education? Is it really clear what the value is in this post? Because if you're just purely putting up, I'll I just feel like gone are the days of those one or two sentence captions that just provide no extra context. Like that for me is not gonna get me to like your piece of content. It also doesn't tell me enough about your brand. If it's a a person posting, it's a little bit different. But if you're a brand that's posting, I need to know information about you. Because if that's the only post of yours that I ever see, or the first post I ever see, I need some information to figure out if I want to stick around in your world. So I guess just to wrap up this little section of the episode is if your current strategy is built around hashtags, I just want you to have a have a moment to think about whether this is a really solid long-term strategy. Moving on to another platform that I love so, so much. And for those of you who have been messaging me over on that platform, please keep it coming because I love spending time on it. It's LinkedIn. And the reason that I've incorporated this today is because not only is it my favorite platform to hang out on, aside from doing this podcast, of course, and getting to hang out with you this morning, but this platform just got so much more powerful for business owners. So a quick update on what's happened on LinkedIn is LinkedIn is in the process of launching a new premium all-in-one subscription for small businesses, which essentially combines sales, marketing, and hiring tools all in one place. But I think the most important part of all of this really is that LinkedIn's actually started to shift to conversational, more AI-driven search. So now what it's doing is it surfaces people and experts as direct answers to search queries, not just the keyword matches. So I really want you to think about when it comes to LinkedIn, this is not the place anymore just for sharing your CV or sharing articles. I think there's still so much, and I find it really interesting. I think there's still so much stigma associated with LinkedIn that it's for old people and it's for the older generation and it's for anyone that's looking for a job. But it is actually one of the most powerful tools, especially for business development, that is available at literally no cost for founders and service-based businesses. I think if you are a service-based business owner, you absolutely need to be documenting your journey on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best space because not only can you continue to stay connected with people that you meet at networking events or people that refer you word of mouth, they might come and connect with you on LinkedIn. It's also a really great way to get so much more traction on your content than you will on any other platform. One of my favorite things about LinkedIn is that you can see articles popping up on your main home feed that were posted two, three, sometimes four weeks ago. It's really, really common to see things that have been posted two or three weeks ago, more so than seeing things that were posted five minutes ago. Whereas Instagram, at most, you have about a 72-hour lifespan on your content. If your content's not hitting within the first hour or the first 24 hours or the first 48 hours, it's never going to make it past 72 hours. And even at that, it usually taps out about 72 hours in. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is prioritizing, recirculating that content that has done really well and that has started to gain a bit of traction in the first week, and it continues to push it in weeks two and weeks three and beyond. So it means the time that you're spending and the time that you're investing in that platform is so worthwhile because there is that long-term ROI. So I want you to think about, I guess, when it comes to LinkedIn, first and foremost, treating your profile like a landing page. So think of it like your website. If somebody landed on it, can they get really clear on who you are, what you do, and what you offer, and how you can help them and also the results that you can get. I want you to think as well about showing up consistently with a point of view on LinkedIn that is showing your thought leadership. I want you to be bold with your opinions, not bitchy, but bold. I don't want you to be ratting on people or going on there and having a whinge, but I want you to share the wins. I want you to share your thoughts. I want you to share some, I guess, industry takes on your sector that you work in that maybe other people don't have. Because that's again ultimately what's going to help you really shine above everybody else. And I wanted to share this because this is also something that we're actively building into client strategies. Because right now is such a good time to get on there. I've got all of my team on there, any of our service-based clients that we have been working with historically. And now obviously, now that we've niche down, all of the service-based brands that we'll be working with moving forward, either we are helping support them with their LinkedIn or they are running their LinkedIn. It is almost a non-negotiable for working with the social collective now, is that the founder has to be on LinkedIn because if not, that is a revenue opportunity that you have literally closed the door on before you've even given it a chance. So if you have any questions on LinkedIn, please hit me up over there. You can find me Lauren Tomlinson over on LinkedIn and come check out my content if you're wondering what to post or you're looking for some inspiration, because I think it's such a great place. So I'm gonna wrap that up there and give you just those nice two little bite-sized updates. I think there's plenty of things to think about. First and foremost, being changing up your Instagram strategy if you're focusing a little too much on using those hashtags and really thinking about how we can add so much good, juicy value into your captions. And then I want you to think about if you're not on LinkedIn, getting on LinkedIn. And if you are on LinkedIn, how can you continue to further optimize your platforms? But in the meantime, if you have any questions on all of that, please drop us a message over at inherempire.com. That's the website that you can now find us over on. You can also find us on Instagram. It was the Coffees and Content Pod, but it's now called uh inherempire.com, keeping it all nice and simple and easy across the board. And of course, we've got our WhatsApp community where we're going to be adding in a whole section for Q ⁇ A for the podcast. So stay tuned for that. But you can find the link in the show notes and you can also find the link in our Instagram bio. But the good news is if you are already showing up consistently with a real voice and a real strategy across these platforms, you are already ahead. And if you're not, you've got so much time to fix it. There is never a wrong time to start with your marketing. And that's what I really hope, I guess, to share with these episodes is giving you that little bit of courage every single Monday morning that there is something that can be done. And it's not too late to start and it's not too hard. And I am here and I'm in your corner. And if you need anything else, of course, the social collective is here too. But that is all for this week's episode of Coffees and Content. I'm gonna see you on Wednesday for our very first proper in her empire era episode. So stay tuned, stay humble, stay getting out there, stay authentic, and I will see you guys in a few days' time. Bye.