Why Elon Musk is begging you to stop hashtagging

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are waiting for the ball to drop:

↗️ META: $11.41 CPM | ↘️ TIKTOK: $5.20 CPM | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $9.33 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 🔎 Google “tests” double-dipping on search ads

• TikTok Death Watch: Supreme Court edition ☠️

• 🧐 Here’s every 2025 performance marketing prediction we could find

But first…

❌ Is the hashtag #dead?

“Please stop using hashtags,” Elon Musk tweeted last week. “The system doesn’t need them anymore and they look ugly.” 

It was another nail in the coffin for hashtags, which have been de-prioritized across most social platforms—much to the relief of social-media managers.

The hashtag once served multiple purposes: taxonomy, contextual targeting tool, semantic device. But as algorithms got smarter and search tools improved, the hashtag became less useful to platforms. Researchers have found that hashtags no longer improve engagement on Instagram or LinkedIn, and even their use as a navigational tool is fading: Instagram recently removed the ability to follow them. Among the few holdouts, Threads still recommends hashtags but limits users to just one. 

🥡 Our take: We won’t be sorry to see the end of the dense, keyword-stuffing strata clogging the drain on every LinkedIn post. But before we pour one out for the ‘tag, we remind you that there are still a few viable use cases—especially when your key topic doesn’t appear in your post text, or you’re messaging about topics that the algorithm isn’t used to seeing you post about.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

🔎 Google claims it is testing a feature that allows the same advertiser to appear twice on a single search results page—a departure from the company’s stated ad policy that it will display only “one ad per account for a particular keyword.” According to SearchEngineLand, the test has been spotted in the wild over the past two weeks. For advertisers, the implications for SEM are significant: if Google were to expand beyond this test, it could impact costs, competition, and ad performance. 

• The test comes on the heels of two studies showing that the costs of Google search rose in 2024, while performance fell — except for Google’s Performance Max (PMax), which stayed even year-over-year. 

🔥 Pro Tip: In September, we reported that Google planned to introduce the ability to add campaign-level negative keywords to PMax by end of year. Well, EOY is here and the beta has finally arrived, but availability is very limited.

📸 Instagram is rolling out a new feature for Reels that would allow creators to share content to a group of non-followers to test resonance with a new audience. After 24 hours, creators will be able to view this initial organic performance data and choose whether or not they want to share this content with everyone. 

🥡 Our take: Followers don’t matter as much as they used to. 

• In the Facebook and Instagram era, algorithms recommended content based on who a user followed and what was popular in that user’s social network. 

• TikTok upended that model, with an AI-powered algorithm that is uncannily good at recommending content to users, regardless of where the content comes from or who the viewer follows. 

• That means Meta’s moat—decades of data on users and their social connections—is drying up. 

• In response, social media platforms have been de-prioritizing followers and instead emphasizing AI-powered content recommendations.

🔗 LinkedIn is doubling down on vertical video. As video content continues to be the leading format for engagement across platforms, LinkedIn is testing the idea of pushing video directly into its news feed—a major expansion of video’s place in LI’s ecosystem. LinkedIn’s current, TikTok-esque video interface saw a 36% growth in usage this year.

🥳 You can now bulk edit ad text on TikTok: 

🔮 The end of 2024 means it’s time for annual retrospectives and predictions for the new year. Here’s what we’re reading:

• Search Engine Land’s “The future of paid search: 3 predictions for Google Ads in 2025” 

• Social Media Today’s “26 Predictions for Social Media Marketing in 2025”

• Digiday’s “Let’s end the year with a big recap of 2024’s marketing trends”

• Marketing Brew’s “2024’s most overhyped marketing trends, according to CMOs”

• AdAge’s “Gen Z marketers reveal brand wins and fails of 2024—and their advice for 2025”

• ADWEEK’s “10 Ads That Struck a Cultural Nerve in 2024”

• Bonus from Marketing Brew: “How the major streamers stacked up in 2024”

• The data analytics platform Domo unveiled their 12th annual edition of “Data Never Sleeps,” which offers a simple snapshot of all of the web’s activity, via bite-sized summaries of our various cumulative online activities.it 

🐘The Elephant In the Room: Our weekly office poll!

This week in ☠️ TikTok Death Watch ☠️

• The Supreme Court will hear arguments about the TikTok ban on Jan 10, less than 10 days before the ban would go into effect. 

• Will SCOTUS have time to rule before the law takes effect? NBC News says yes, but it would be an "unusually fast" decision.

• SCOTUS could have provisionally blocked the law to give themselves more time to rule. They did not. 

• Speculation is rampant about what happens after President-Elect Donald Trump takes office. One theory is there could be a ban, and then an un-ban. TikTok has estimated that even a 1-month stoppage could cost the platform 1/3 of its U.S. user base. (But c'mon: The day TikTok gets un-banned would be a Gen-Z national holiday.)

• If the ban goes into effect, Trump could theoretically order his Justice Department not to enforce it. But if enforced, the law specifies the penalty is $5000 per user for each platform that continues to host the app, including Apple, Google, and Oracle. 

• After Trump met with TikTok’s CEO this week, he said he had a "warm spot" in his heart for TikTok.

• Could US users access TikTok even after a ban, via VPN? Axios says maybe.

Which leads us to this week’s poll question: what do you think actually happens? 

📊 Last edition’s poll results: Which client should we invite to next year’s Gupta Media holiday party? (We see you, Wicked fans.) 

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Noah Kahan 

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Gracie Abrams 

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ SZA 

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Ariana Grande 

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Kendrick Lamar

Thanks for reading!

• PROGRAMMING NOTE: This is the last Thread of 2024!

• We have a new client with an absurd deadline next week, something about a few billion parcels being matched to specific addresses, everything has to be delivered overnight. We’ll let you know how it goes.

• We’ll be back in January to fill your inbox with more tips, tricks, and treats from the addressable universe.

In the meantime, stay up to date with the latest performance marketing intelligence by following us on Linkedin, Instagram, and X.