How to Find Trending Hashtags on LinkedIn

Using the right hashtags on LinkedIn can dramatically increase the visibility of your content, connecting you with professionals who are actively searching for your expertise. But finding hashtags that are not just popular, but also relevant and actively engaged, is where the real strategy lies. This guide will walk you through several practical methods for discovering trending and effective hashtags to elevate your LinkedIn presence.

Why Your LinkedIn Hashtag Strategy Matters

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." On LinkedIn, hashtags aren't just for decoration - they are functional tools that categorize your content and plug it directly into professional conversations. When someone follows a hashtag like #ProjectManagement or #B2BMarketing, your post can appear in their feed even if they don't follow you personally. This is a powerful way to expand your reach organically.

A smart hashtag strategy helps you:

• Increase Discoverability: Reach an audience beyond your immediate network.
• Improve Relevance: Signal to the LinkedIn algorithm what your content is about, helping it find the right viewers.
• Join Conversations: Participate in industry-wide discussions and position yourself as a thought leader.
• Build Community: Use branded or campaign-specific hashtags to track content and engagement around your company.

Method 1: Using LinkedIn's Native Tools

LinkedIn has several built-in features that make finding relevant hashtags straightforward. Often, the best place to start looking is right on the platform itself.

Check the 'My Network' Page

One of the easiest ways to get started is by looking at what LinkedIn already knows about you. The platform provides a hub dedicated to content discovery.

1. Navigate to the "My Network" tab in the main header.
2. On the left-hand menu, look for the "Hashtags" option. Click on it.
3. This takes you to a page listing the hashtags you already follow. More importantly, LinkedIn will suggest other relevant hashtags based on your profile, activity, and industry. These suggestions are a goldmine for discovering new and niche tags you might not have considered.

Use the LinkedIn Search Bar

The LinkedIn search bar is a surprisingly powerful tool for hashtag research. It doesn't just find people or companies, it gives you data on hashtags themselves.

1. Click on the search bar at the top of the page.
2. Type the '#' symbol followed by a keyword relevant to your industry. For example, #digitalmarketing.
3. As you type, a dropdown will appear showing related hashtags and, crucially, the number of followers each one has.
4. Press 'Enter' to see a full page of content using that hashtag. This allows you to gauge the type of content performing well and spot other relevant hashtags used in those successful posts.

This method helps you identify broad, high-follower tags and more specific, niche alternatives. For instance, searching for #marketing (45M followers) might lead you to discover #contentmarketingstrategy (360K followers), a much more targeted tag.

Analyze Influencers and Competitors

You don't have to reinvent the wheel. The industry leaders and top performers in your niche are likely already using an effective hashtag strategy. Spend some time analyzing their content.

• Identify 5-10 Key Voices: These can be well-known influencers, direct competitors, or companies you admire.
• Review Their Last 10 Posts: Look at the hashtags they use consistently. Are there patterns? Do they mix broad and niche tags?
• Note the Followers: Click on the hashtags they use to see the follower counts. This helps you understand which tags are driving broad reach versus targeted engagement.

Their success provides a free, live case study. Pay attention not just to the hashtags themselves, but how they incorporate them. This research gives you a proven list of relevant keywords to experiment with.

Explore 'Creator Mode' Content Suggestions

If you've enabled Creator Mode on your profile, LinkedIn provides tools to help you come up with content ideas. These can also serve as a source of hashtag inspiration.

1. Go to your LinkedIn profile.
2. Under your dashboard, if Creator Mode is on, you'll see your "Creator tools."
3. Click on "Content ideas." LinkedIn sometimes suggests trending topics based on what resonates with users. While it doesn't always directly list hashtags, the topics it promotes are often aligned with currently trending hashtags. For example, if it suggests "the future of hybrid work," you can bet that #HybridWork and #FutureOfWork are gaining traction.

Method 2: Looking Beyond LinkedIn

While LinkedIn's internal tools are excellent starting points, you can enhance your research by monitoring broader industry trends and discussions happening elsewhere.

Track Industry Lingo and Buzzwords

Think about the language of your field. What are the hot topics at industry conferences, in trade publications, or on popular podcasts?

• What new technologies are people talking about? (e.g., #GenAI, #Web3)
• What professional methodologies are gaining momentum? (e.g., #AgileLeadership, #RevenueOperations)
• What are the big-picture challenges or discussions in your space? (e.g., #SupplyChainResilience, #SustainableFinance)

These industry conversations naturally translate into LinkedIn hashtags. Often, you can be among the first to adopt a newly emerging tag, establishing your content as a primary source on the topic.

Use Broader Social Media Analytics Tools

Many social media management platforms include features for hashtag monitoring and analytics that can pull data from multiple networks. While LinkedIn's API is more restricted than others, these tools can still provide valuable directional insights.

They can show you which hashtags related to your core topics have seen a spike in usage across platforms like X (formerly Twitter). A trend on X within a professional context is often a leading indicator of a conversation that's also happening or about to happen on LinkedIn.

Building Your Perfect Hashtag Mix

Finding hashtags is only half the battle. Using them effectively is about creating a balanced mix that serves different purposes. Aim for 3 to 5 highly relevant hashtags per post. LinkedIn values quality over quantity. Overloading a post with a dozen hashtags can look spammy and dilute your message.

Your ideal mix should include:

1. Broad &, Popular Hashtags

These are the high-level, high-follower tags that give your content the widest potential reach. They attract a large, general audience interested in a topic.

• Examples: #Leadership (63M followers), #Marketing (45M followers), #Technology (38M followers)
• Purpose: Maximum visibility and brand awareness.

2. Niche &, Specific Hashtags

These are more targeted hashtags that describe your specific area of expertise. They have fewer followers, but those followers are much more invested and engaged in the topic.

• Examples: #B2BSaaSMarketing (17K followers), #ProductLedGrowth (60K followers), #UXDesignTrends (2K followers)
• Purpose: Connecting with a relevant, high-intent audience. These are often where you'll find your best conversations.

3. Branded Hashtags

This is a unique tag for your business or personal brand. It helps you build a community and makes it easy for you and your audience to find a curated collection of your content.

• Examples: #YourCompanyName, #YourMarketingCampaign, #GoPostbase
• Purpose: Brand building, tracking user-generated content, and creating a content hub.

A Relatable Example of a Good Mix

Imagine you're a leadership coach posting a video about effective communication for remote teams. A strong hashtag mix would be:

#Leadership #RemoteWork #CommunicationSkills #YourCoachingBrand

• #Leadership: The broad, high-reach tag.
• #RemoteWork: A specific, but still popular, contextual tag.
• #CommunicationSkills: The niche tag that speaks to your sub-topic.
• #YourCoachingBrand: Your branded tag.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

As you refine your strategy, watch out for these common pitfalls:

• Using Irrelevant Tags: Don't just slap a trending hashtag like #MotivationMonday on a post about supply chain logistics. The audience will be wrong, and the algorithm may flag it as low-quality.
• Only Using Massive Hashtags: If you only use tags with millions of followers, your content is a tiny drop in a massive ocean, and it will quickly get buried.
• Using Spaces or Punctuation: Hashtags must be a single string of text. #SocialMediaMarketing works, #Social media marketing does not.
• Having a "Set It and Forget It" List: Trends change. Continuously monitor your hashtag performance and refresh your list every few months based on what's working.

Final Thoughts

Finding the right LinkedIn hashtags is about blending art and science. By using the platform's native tools, analyzing your industry, and creating a balanced mix of broad, niche, and branded tags, you can significantly boost your content's reach and connect with the right professional audience.

A smart hashtag strategy lays the foundation, but delivering valuable content consistently is what drives long-term growth. We know how challenging it can be to manage planning, scheduling, and analytics, especially with the rise of short-form video. It was that frustration with clunky, outdated tools that led us to build Postbase, a clean, modern platform designed to get out of your way and let you focus on creating great content that connects with your audience.