Blog: Instagram Is Testing "Hidden Hashtags"

A developer has discovered a handy potential future feature.

Instagram is testing a killer feature that overcomes hashtag clutter, according to developer Jane Manchun Wong.

In a series of Tweets, the developer - who is known for digging around in apps to uncover hidden new features - found that Instagram was piloting the ability to add hashtags one by one to a post, and have these not appear as text within the item's caption.


This is a major change from the current approach, and it's been speculated that could be partly to help address concerns around hashtag clutter - where posts have so many hashags that their captions become unreadable.

It's another evolution for the platform, who have recently transitioned brands to business accounts - and encouraged brands to have consumers @mention them rather than include brand-specific hashtags, in order for the brand to be able to engage with the consumer's content (for example, to ask permission to use it.)

If you're a brand that wants to stay ahead of the crowd, why not try Hashtag'd? We're a platform to gather, curate and gain permission to use consumer content from all the major social platforms.