Hashtags for Twitter, the way Twitter advises. One or two.

How many hashtags for Twitter?

One or two. Twitter's own help center says it recommends no more than 2 hashtags per post as best practice, while allowing as many as you like. Every hashtag also spends characters from a 280-character post, so a third tag usually costs you words that would have done more work. That is why the ready set here is never bigger than two.

What hashtags actually do on Twitter

Twitter describes the hashtag as a way to index posts by keyword. Put # in front of a word or phrase and your post is filed under it: anyone who taps that hashtag or searches for it can find your post if your account is public, and hashtags that get very popular often become trending topics. That is discovery, not a reach bonus. A hashtag puts your post in a pile; the post still has to make someone stop. A simple test: if the tweet makes sense to someone who has never seen your account, a hashtag can help them find it. If it only makes sense to your followers, skip the tag.

Finding the best hashtags for Twitter

The best tags are the ones your audience already uses, not the biggest ones. The tool returns six suggestions in three groups:

• Broad. The topic, like #AI or #Marketing. Big, fast-moving and easy to get lost in.

• Community. Tags with a real group behind them, like #BuildInPublic. Smaller, and more likely to bring replies from people who care.

• Specific. This exact post or event, like a conference tag. Few posts, highly relevant.

The ready set usually pairs one community tag with one specific tag. Before you lean on any tag, search it on Twitter and check that recent posts match your topic.

Hashtag rules that break a tweet

• No spaces or punctuation. Twitter says a hashtag with spaces or punctuation will not work properly. Join the words: #ContentMarketing.

• Anywhere in the post works. Hashtags can sit inside a sentence or at the end. Mid-sentence reads cleaner when the word belongs there anyway.

• Skip unrelated trends. A trending tag that has nothing to do with your post brings the wrong people and looks like spam.

• Count the characters. Hashtags and links eat into 280, and every link counts as 23 characters however long it is. The Twitter character counter shows what is left.

Hashtags get a post found. Your voice gets it followed.

On Twitter the post itself does almost all the work, and that is where VoiceMoat helps. audenAI learns from your own tweets, drafts posts, threads and replies in your voice, and checks drafts so they sound like you. Try the free AI tweet generator for five angles on one topic, see what made a tweet spread with the viral tweet analyzer, and draft every post in Studio.