Hashtag
Also known as: tags, hashtags
A keyword marked with a hash symbol that groups a post with others like it, useful for discovery and routinely overused.
Updated
What it means
A hashtag is a label a platform can search. It places a post in a bucket alongside everything else carrying the same word, which is a discovery mechanism rather than a ranking one.
Its value varies enormously by platform. On some it is the primary way anything is found, and on others it is close to decoration that the ranking ignores more or less entirely.
It is not the same as a keyword in a description. A Video tags field and a hashtag do related jobs, and only one of them is visible to somebody reading the post.
How it works in practice
Specific beats popular. A tag used by thousands puts a post at the bottom of an enormous pile, where a narrow tag for a local spot or a discipline reaches the people who actually care about that particular thing.
A small number does the work. Three or five relevant tags perform as well as thirty, and the long list reads as somebody hoping rather than somebody who chose.
Matching the actual content is the whole point. A tag that describes a different sport brings viewers who leave immediately, which damages Audience retention rather than helping anything.
What to watch out for
Banned and flooded tags are a real hazard. Some tags are quietly restricted, and using one can limit the reach of an entire post, which is how a Shadowban is usually first noticed.
Copying a competitor list achieves nothing. Tags that worked for somebody with a different audience are not transferable, and the ranking has already seen that particular approach many times.
They are a weak substitute for the opening. Nothing in a tag keeps somebody watching, so effort spent here instead of on the Hook is effort spent in entirely the wrong place.
How RawClip handles it
Tags, descriptions and titles belong to whoever publishes a result rather than to the edit itself, since they are specific to a platform and an audience. The sequence itself is the part that has to hold attention once somebody has actually arrived to watch it.