Hashtags were invented in 2007, when X (formerly Twitter) worker Chris Messina proposed using the pound symbol (#) as a way of adding a quick and easy metadata markup in X posts.
The hashtag owes its popularity, in part, to the San Diego bushfires of 2007, when users were able to track updates using #sandiegofires. That moment proved that hashtags work for organizing and finding specific, relevant content.
Since then, hashtags have exploded in popularity, first making their way from X onto other platforms like Facebook, then Instagram, LinkedIn, and now TikTok.
TikTok hashtags work the same way as they always have: Creators (and brands) use TikTok hashtags to help expose their content to more viewers, improving content discoverability and helping them grow their TikTok presence.
What are TikTok hashtags?
Just as it was on other social media platforms before it, TikTok hashtags help group topics and interests so they're more easily discoverable by users. This way, the audience can be exposed to content that's relevant to their interests, even when they're not following the account.
Hashtags on TikTok often use the suffix "tok" to indicate that it's a subcommunity or subculture within TikTok. For example, #booktok is all about literature.
Benefits of using hashtags in your TikTok strategy
It's obvious that TikTok hashtags help the user experience (UX) of the platform and make it easier for users to find the short-form TikTok videos most relevant to them and their interests. Here are some more reasons why TikTok hashtags are an important part of your brand's social media strategy:
Increase visibility
Hashtags make your content more discoverable, and also help you reach out to your target audience. That's because hashtag collections show up whenever a user clicks on one in a post. TikTok will also collate posts with similar hashtags to those you've already watched and put them on the For You Page (FYP).
For example, if you always watch posts about cute pets, then posts with hashtags like #petlife or #pettok are more likely to show up on your FYP. Brands that use those tags will also be featured for those customers.
Boost engagement
Because hashtags make your content more discoverable, relevant hashtags will also help drive more clicks, likes, and comments from people watching those hashtag categories. This is especially true of trending tags or hashtag challenges.
The more you use effective hashtags, the easier it is to communicate directly with your target audience. Social media marketing tools often use hashtags to help analyze campaign performance and sentiment, and you can use these valuable insights to increase engagement on your content.
Build community
Hashtags allow you to find and communicate based on specific interest groups. If your brand has relevant hashtag conversations, you can be part of the community in an organic way. Another way to build community is with branded hashtags.
Great examples of these are #shotoniphone and #shareacoke. Coca-Cola generated hundreds of thousands of Toks, all vying for the change to be featured on Coke billboards. Even though that contest is over, the hashtag continues to build fans of Coke.
#jeep is another branded hashtag that builds community as loyal fans post about their Jeep adventures.
Lastly, hashtags can help you see what your customer base is saying about your company and gather that feedback.
Identify competitors
Hashtags are a good tool for competitive analysis and corporate research. They allow you to quickly find and identify major brands in your industry and also see what sort of content they're producing. Brands that watch hashtags carefully will see newcomers to the market early and be able to react faster to new challenges.
Get great TikTok content ideas
Lastly, businesses can use hashtags for their original purpose: finding great content. Scanning a hashtag for videos that are getting great engagement and reach can help your team develop better ideas.
You can also use those tags to find and identify trends. When you tap your search bar, it'll show you what similar accounts to yours are searching for and viewing on TikTok. This will hint at future trends and interesting topics to explore.
Top TikTok hashtags in 2024
Hashtags on TikTok are almost a living organism. The trends ebb and flow over time, with patterns repeating and returning seemingly at whim. While TikTok trends are highly localized and specific to your online personality and footprint, there are some common, popular tags.
Remember, these change daily, so what is trending now might not be trending tomorrow. That's why Brandwatch uses AI tools to analyze hashtags and stay ahead of the trend curve.
Popular hashtags on TikTok
The following is a list of hashtags that are currently popular on TikTok. Some of them, such as #ufc304 and #caribana, are tied to events and will likely only be popular for a short while before they fade into obscurity. Others, like #tacotuesday and #tiktoktravel, are likely to remain popular for a long time to come, giving brands a chance to connect with audiences by using these trending hashtags in their campaigns.
These are some of the most popular TikTok hashtags right now:
- #tiktokchallenge
- #aesthetic
- #tiktoktravel
- #back2school
- #live
- #tacotuesday
- #caribana
- #cobrakai
- #duet
- #filtergame
- #ufc304
- #levelup
Don't forget that hashtags vary from day to day, location to location. That's why social media management tools are so useful – they help identify current trends. That said, here is a range of top hashtags for different business sectors:
Trending TikTok hashtags for B2B
The B2B (business to business) sector is populated mostly by sales and marketing professionals, as well as software as a service (SaaS) companies. Popular hashtags in this sector include:
- #b2b
- #b2bsales
- #leadgeneration
- #networking
- #business
- #marketing
- #entrepreneur
- #startup
- #b2bsocialmedia
- #b2bmarketing
Trending TikTok hashtags for fashion and beauty
Fashion and beauty is a strong community where creators on TikTok work hard to establish their own identity and presence. TikTok influencers in this space are some of the highest earning. TikTok hashtags popular in fashion and beauty are:
- #ootd
- #beautyhacks
- #styleguide
- #makeuptutorial
- #fashionblogger
- #fashiontrends
- #beautytips
- #motd
- #glam
- #fashionhaul
Trending TikTok hashtags for fitness
TikTok captions in the fitness space are usually inspirational and energetic. The fitness community aims to motivate and educate its target audience through its posts, and the popular hashtags for #fittok TikTok users reflect that:
- #fitness
- #fittok
- #fitnessgoals
- #fitfam
- #gymlife
- #workoutmotivation
- #girlswholift
- #fitnesstherapy
- #fitnesslifestyle
- #crossfit
Trending TikTok hashtags for food, beverage, and restaurants
Food lovers flock to TikTok for posts that inspire meal choices, to find new restaurants to eat at, and to discover new flavors of food and drink. The most popular hashtags are related to their love of food, with a strong sense of aesthetics added in:
- #foodtok
- #foodie
- #foodporn
- #instafood
- #wine
- #restaurant
- #foodreview
- #dinnerideas
- #cheflife
- #travel
Trending TikTok hashtags for technology and software
Industry trends dominate the most popular hashtags within the technology and software subcommunity on TikTok. These posts favor simple and straightforward terms like:
- #ai
- #techtips
- #cybersecurity
- #softwaredevelopment
- #innovation
- #coding
- #technews
- #iphone
- #tech
- #android
Trending TikTok hashtags for travel
Key phrases for #traveltok evoke the sense of adventure and wonder associated with TikTok. The most popular travel hashtags include:
- #travel
- #traveltok
- #adventure
- #roadtrip
- #explore
- #wanderlust
- #travelguide
- #travelblogger
- #iceland
- #hiking
How to find the best TikTok hashtags
TikTok offers a handful of analytic tools to track and find hashtags for your posts. There's the Discover tool for TikTok business accounts, which allows you to look up current trending TikTok hashtags across a range of industries. The Discover page lists suggested hashtags by region and business. It also lists these various hashtags in order of popularity.
There's also the Explore page on the TikTok app itself, where you can search for content from your industry. You can use this to look up posts from your target market and competitors and then click on their posts to discover some of the popular hashtags related to your post.
The best way to find TikTok hashtags is to use social media analytics tools like Brandwatch. Brandwatch uses AI-powered tools to analyze thousands of posts and identify trending hashtags, topics, and more. Brandwatch also offers an AI-powered hashtag generator to help inspire you.
Tips for using hashtags to go viral on TikTok
Using hashtags is a great way to get your content noticed in the sea of short-form content on the social media app. Following some TikTok hashtag best practices will help you drive discovery and engagement, improving the performance of your posts and accelerating your growth.
The most important tip is to use the right hashtags. Relevant hashtags are those that are closely related to the specific content of your post or your industry. They should also be tags that have already been used and have some level of traction within the app — this will ensure that people are actively clicking on and exploring those hashtags.
Irrelevant hashtags or hashtags that are generic and overused will confuse the algorithm. That could lead to your videos being listed as spam.
Users who click on a popular hashtag but find an irrelevant post are less likely to engage with that video or watch it all the way through. This will lead to the TikTok algorithm showing your content to fewer people.
#fyp and #foryou are good examples of irrelevant and overused hashtags. You should also avoid inauthentic hashtags. Avoid adding a tag just because it's trending if it's not related to your post or your company's brand image. It might be tempting to reference a hashtag challenge just because it's trending, but if your video uses #icebucketchallenge and nobody is getting wet, that could lead to your post and even your whole account being labeled or viewed as spam by the audience and TikTok's bots.
Also, use hashtags sparingly, a few (three to five) hashtags is a good number. If you use too many hashtags your content will feel spammy to your target audience. The comment section is a good place to add more hashtags if you really need to add more than that.
Mix up hashtags with a blend of general tags, but also niche hashtags that are relevant to your brand or business. This will help you focus on a specific demographic audience, and also help you cultivate a distinct brand image.
Successful brands on TikTok have even created their own hashtags to help build community, such as #shareacoke, #iwantanr8, and #justdoit. These niche hashtags actively promote the brand while also engaging the TikTok community.
Finally, don't think every post has to have hashtags in every video caption. It's perfectly acceptable, and sometimes it's best to put your hashtags in a comment under your video. That leaves the caption clean and sharp to help deliver a tight message to your audience while still letting you add as many hashtags as you like.
Stay on top of TikTok trends with Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a powerful tool for social media marketers. It uses advanced AI programming to assess and track TikTok posts across a wide variety of industries and find trends even before they develop. This helps brands boost visibility by staying relevant and current and greatly enhances your content's discoverability. Our software can even help you write your TikTok caption.
The valuable insights gleaned from the Brandwatch suite of social media tools will help you increase your TikTok views and make your content appear more and more often in user search and recommended TikToks.
Brandwatch can help you build and monitor a variety of audience profiles to help you get your message to the people it matters to most thanks to our years of social media management and analysis.
TikTok hashtags FAQs
How to find trending hashtags on TikTok?
Search for trending hashtags on TikTok using the Discover page, or by searching content in the app itself. You can also get hashtag recommendations by partnering with a social media analytics tool like Brandwatch.
How many hashtags should I use on TikTok?
Three to five hashtags is a good number for TikTok posts. There's a caption character limit of 100 characters for hashtags, so use them wisely. Adding too many hashtags can make a post look spammy and make your caption hard to read. You can add hashtags in the TikTok comments section when you need more hashtags but don't want to clutter your caption.
What are the all-time top 10 hashtags on TikTok?
The top 10 hashtags by views on TikTok are:
- #fyp (55.41 trillion views)
- #foryou (31.72 trillion views)
- #viral (21.68 trillion views)
- #fypシ (20.56 trillion views)
- #foryoupage (19.56 trillion views)
- #parati (8.43 trillion views)
- #tiktok (7.29 trillion views)
- #capcut (6.11 trillion views)
- #fy (6.08 trillion views)
- #trending (5.39 trillion views)
However, some of these same hashtags from the top 10 are hashtags you should avoid. They include generic terms like #fyp, #foryou, and #viral that are less and less effective at promoting your posts. The most successful way to promote your TikTok account is by using relevant, targeted keywords that help you reach the viewers you value most.
What is the 3-by-3 hashtag rule on TikTok?
The three-by-three hashtag rule recommends TikTok accounts put no more than three hashtags about what the video relates to, three about the audience it's intended for, and three about the problem the video aims to solve. In other words, the what, who, and why of the TikTok video.
