There’s no escaping it, in the last decade social media has arguably become the most powerful tool in the online marketer’s engagement arsenal, with its usage almost tripling between 2011 and 2021. That’s over 4.74 billion active worldwide users accounting for around 60% of the world’s total population.
The ability to connect and engage with a carefully crafted audience, to provoke meaningful discussion relating to your company’s key values, and to organically grow your business into markets that would otherwise have been almost impossible to reach are all factors that certainly cannot be overlooked.
But, as social media continues to grow and change, marketing professionals are kept on their toes regarding the most effective ways to captivate and engage with an ever-expanding audience. One way to secure your place in the conversation is through carefully planned hashtag research, ensuring that your brand remains relevant and relatable on a daily basis across each and every platform.
With this in mind, here’s our run down of the most popular Thursday hashtags for better engagement.
#ThrowbackThursday
The first, and by many accounts most iconic, Thursday hashtag has to be #ThrowbackThursday. Sometimes stylised using the simplified #TBT hashtag, this trend dates all the way back to 2006, and is perhaps the most well-known date-specific hashtag that still sees regular usage today.
The popularity of #ThrowbackThursday lies in its easy-to-understand premise and its catchy alliterative moniker, with accounts simply sharing nostalgic images in an effort to underpin the changes (or lack thereof) that they’ve experienced through the years.
Part of #TBT’s staying power lies in its incredible versatility, with usage open to a surprisingly wide range of differing interpretations. Accounts looking to convey sincerity can post images highlighting the challenges they’ve overcome, those looking for humor can opt for self-deprecating or subversive images, and nostalgic brands can use #TBT to provoke conversations on this often-engaging topic.
On Instagram alone there are currently over 488 million posts tagged with the #ThrowbackThursday hashtag, proving the trend’s long-lasting relevance, with hashtag tracking tools indicating a global reach of around 3.1 million and 1.6 million for #TBT and #ThrowbackThursday respectively over a 7-day period.
#ThursdayThoughts
#ThursdayThoughts may be a slightly less well-known Thursday-centric hashtag, but the introspective nature of this trend does offer up a great opportunity for brands and marketers to begin a meaningful and reflective dialogue with their audience, just before the madness of the weekend begins to set in.
This hashtag is often a little more popular across text-heavy platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, as the prompt offers ample room for audiences to engage with their own musings surrounding the original poster’s intent, though it’s not uncommon to find #ThursdayThoughts trending across Twitter and Instagram when paired with thought-provoking imagery or text-based images.
#ThursdayThoughts can be a great spark for conversation and engagement, as posters are able to use the trend to bring up either highly agreeable or slightly controversial topics, presenting a clear and accessible way for an audience to have their say about a subject of the poster’s choosing.
Hashtag tracking tools show that the #ThursdayThoughts trend promotes around 10.3K unique interactions, with a global reach of 492.5K accounts per week, indicating that although this may not be the most popular Thursday hashtag it can certainly draw in a sizable audience when used effectively.
#ThirstyThursday
This one’s a little different from our previous two installments in that Thirsty Thursday is actually something of a pseudo-holiday that takes place on the first Thursday of July each year. Though this hasn’t always been the case, with the trend seeing some degree of online usage as far back as 2006, long before the holiday’s official inception during the summer of 2020.
#ThirstyThursday is mostly used in relation to alcohol and parties, restricting its usage somewhat away from the more family-friendly brands and marketers, though as with most online trends the hashtag can be easily subverted to poke fun at drinking culture and promote healthier alternatives.
For brands that do align with drinking culture, #ThirstyThursday can be a great jumping off point to promote engagement with the 60% of Americans that regularly drink alcoholic beverages. For marketers looking to reach a younger demographic, it’s perfectly geared towards college-aged audiences, of which 38%, 67%, and 86% actively use Twitter, Instagram and Facebook respectively.
Currently the #ThirstyThursday hashtag boasts some impressive engagement statistics, including 2.1K unique interactions and a global reach of around 1.1 million during a week-long period, though it’s fairly niche usage does hinder quite a few brands from making successful use of these numbers.
#ThursdayVibes
With almost 3 million Instagram posts currently carrying the #ThursdayVibes hashtag, it’s clear that the open-endedness of this trend can make for a truly versatile and inclusive posting strategy, best used to provoke light-hearted and positive conversation surrounding universally relatable subjects.
Due to the fundamentally positive and colloquial nature of the term “vibes”, the #ThursdayVibes trend tends to be used to share motivational messages in an inclusive tone, with the hashtag commonly being paired alongside similar terms such as #Gratitude, #Motivation and #Positivity across Facebook and LinkedIn.
#ThursdayVibes can also be used in a more tongue-in-cheek way, with some accounts opting to lament over their pre-weekend workloads or job-related stresses tinged with a hint of sarcasm, but it seems the most popular #ThursdayVibes posts continue to remain firmly rooted in motivational language.
With a reach of around 1.3 million social media users per week, #ThursdayVibes definitely has the potential to boost engagement for brands that align with its positive connotations, though this trend may not always fit perfectly in campaigns that require a more serious or professional tone of voice.
#ThankfulThursday
In a continuation of the more motivational and inspirational Thursday hashtag trends, #ThankfulThursday is often found paired with similar phrases such as #ThursdayVibes, in an effort to spark positive conversations surrounding the topics of personal success, achievements and other similarly good-natured concepts.
#ThankfulThursday is yet another online trend born from a real-world holiday, in this case Thanksgiving, with posters using the hashtag as a great excuse to step back from the busy pace of their daily lives in an effort to practice both mindfulness and gratitude for the good they see in the world.
The appreciative and optimistic connotations that underline this trend make it a great fit for lifestyle, self-care and wellness-oriented brands, with the hashtag seeing high levels of engagement from accounts representing the 30 – 49 and 50 – 65 age groups. These groups are most active on Facebook, with 77% and 51% of adults in each bracket respectively classed as active users, explaining the hashtag’s popularity across this platform in particular.
#ThankfulThursday has an impressive weekly reach of around 1.9 million, with about 2.5K unique interactions recorded in the same time period, though with its usage mostly confined to Facebook, #ThankfulThursday may not be the most effective trend to use in a cross-platform posting campaign.
#ThursdayMotivation
Feeding off of the anticipation many people feel for the fast-approaching weekend, the #ThursdayMotivation hashtag looks to inspire a little hope in its adopters, mostly in the form of positive affirmations designed to guide individuals softly towards the end of their working week.
A large number of the almost 2.5 million Instagram posts tagged with this hashtag come in the form of text-based images, with similar trends being seen across Facebook and Twitter, suggesting that this hashtag is less about the poster themselves and more about fostering a sense of community.
Recruitment, mentoring and tutoring brands can see impressive levels of engagement when using the #ThursdayMotivation trend, as can companies geared towards office-based roles, with the target audience for this style of content seemingly falling into the 25 – 40-year-old professional age group.
The weekly reach for #ThursdayMotivation isn’t quite as large as you may think, with tracking tools indicating around 495K weekly mentions, though with 5.8K unique interactions the actual engagement numbers within these posts are fairly impressive.
#ThursdayNight
This trend is about as straight-forward as they come, with its usage spread mostly between office-based workers posting tongue-in-cheek accounts of their pre-weekend workloads, and a younger demographic taking the prompt more literally with posts pertaining to recreational nights out.
Nightlife brands, such as bars and breweries, can use this trend as an opportunity to highlight their products and events, with the hashtag being particularly applicable to areas with a large student population, as they’re generally more likely to engage with drinking and nightlife related content.
#ThursdayNight is a fairly active trend on Instagram, with over 1.5 million posts to date, many of which actually look to subvert the more literal aspects of the hashtag by posting content relating to a relaxing home life. This can open the hashtag’s usage to lifestyle and homeware brands with a slightly older target audience.
With a reach of around 1 million social media users per week, and recorded unique interactions almost reaching 6K, the #ThursdayNight hashtag does boast quite an enticing rate of engagement, which is great for such a versatile trend.
#TransformationThursday
#TransformationThursday is actually something of an offshoot of a similar date-based trend, that being Transformation Tuesday, though in recent years its usage has seen a markable increase with over 675K Instagram posts alongside a large number of both Facebook and Twitter posts.
This trend acts as a great opportunity for brands to showcase the effectiveness of their products, with plenty of skincare, make-up and wellness accounts posting before and after pictures designed to provoke conversations regarding their wares. The tag isn’t only confined to this industry though, with everything from construction companies to interior designers using the trend in a similar fashion.
With #TransformationThursday being centered around the visible effectiveness of a brand or product, it presents commenters with an easy opportunity to share their own relevant stories, often making for an organic conversation that’s easily shared amongst online friendship groups.
The #TransformationThursday hashtag may have a slightly lower reach than some of the trends we’ve previously mentioned, that being around 145K social media users per week, though with 11.8K unique interactions its actual engagement ratio is towards the higher end of the scale. This proves that when used in the correct context, it can be a very effective and productive tool to promote organic conversation.
Regardless of your chosen industry, the key to any brand’s social media campaign should lie in a carefully prepared posting schedule. By ensuring that your social media team is monitoring current trends, tracking popular hashtags and keywords, and actively engaging with the online community, it should become clear just which weekly hashtags will be most beneficial to your particular business. Consider making use of team collaboration tools like ClickUp and Asana to streamline communication between your social media team to ensure that you’re always on the same page.
With your target market in mind, it’s then possible to get creative with your usage of these trends, to subvert your audience’s expectations in order to generate active and organic engagement. Remember that it isn’t always the highest trending hashtags that will generate the most interest in your content; to guarantee organic engagement your audience will need a clear reason to respond.
Posing questions, presenting transformations and connecting with your ideal demographic are all effective ways to spark conversation, we hope that some of the Thursday hashtags we’ve shared today are able to help you achieve exactly this.
