Hashtags have been a part of Instagram since forever, and as fun as it is to look up #cats or #pugs, they've always required extra work on the user's part. Adding hashtags to your own posts is easy enough, but if you actually want to look at other photos/videos using certain hashtags, you need to head to the Discover page and manually search for them.
Today, that ends with the new ability to follow hashtags right in your main feed.
Now when searching for your favorite hashtag, you'll see a new button at the top of the page that lets you "follow" it. When you follow a hashtag, this then shows posts from anyone using it in your main feed along with posts from people that you follow.
Instagram's algorithm will more than likely prevent every single post using a hashtag that you follow from showing up in your feed, but considering that there are some hashtags being used just about every second, that's not necessarily a bad thing. We'll probably see adjustments made to how often hashtag posts show up in your feed as Instagram matures the feature, but for the time being, feel free to experiment with larger and smaller hashtags to see what's the best fit for you and your timeline.
There are plenty of hashtags on Instagram that have caught my attention, but I honestly can't tell you the last time I took the time to search for one and look at posts using it. The ability to follow hashtags on Instagram might not sound huge at first, but thinking about my daily use habits with the service, I can see myself using this quite often. What about you?
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