Hot take: I stopped using hashtags on my 800 follower account and one post hit 40k views
I run a small page about thrift store finds, and 3 weeks ago I quit adding hashtags to my posts just to see what would happen. My reach tanked for about 10 days, then a plain post about a $2 lamp got picked up by the algorithm and hit 40k views with zero tags. I think the tags were actually confusing the system about who to show my stuff to. Still trying to figure out if that was a fluke or if tags really do hold small accounts back. Has anyone else tested dropping hashtags and tracked what happened to their reach?