What’s The Deal With Facebook’s Hashtags?

While hashtags have been popular and accepted on Twitter since the beginning, that hasn’t been true for Facebook until recently and Black Tie Digital Marketing wants to discuss this new feature. Facebook announced their introduction of hashtags last week; however, not everyone saw them right away. When I first saw this post in my news feed, I was unable to click on the hashtags and was thoroughly confused by what Facebook had in mind.

However, just the other day I saw the hashtags in blue and were able to click on them much like on my Twitter feed. Jessica Lee at Search Engine Watch explained that, “With hashtags, you can: search for a specific hashtag from your search bar, click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram, compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.”

Why, after all this time, is Facebook deciding to embrace the hashtag universe? Hashtags have taken over the world. There are hashtags on billboards, in the corner of the television screen during episodes, on flyers, and basically everywhere else you look.

Lee shared Facebook’s reason for using hashtags, “during primetime television alone, there are between 88 and 100 million Americans engaged on Facebook – roughly a Super Bowl-sized audience every single night. The recent “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones, received over 1.5 million mentions on Facebook, representing a significant portion of the 5.2 million people who watched the show. And this year’s Oscars buzz reached an all-time high on Facebook with over 66.5 million interactions, including likes, comments, and posts. To date, there has not been a simple way to see the larger view of what’s happening or what people are talking about.”

I can’t decide if I like Facebook’s acceptance of hashtags, but people have been using them incorrectly on Facebook anyways so it’s probably about time Facebook adapts to it. By adopting the hashtags, people will be able to participate in worldwide discussions of popular topics as they do in the Twitter world. This is extremely helpful when an event like the Miss USA pageant or the Olympics is going on. Let us know what you think of Facebook hashtags! If you need help with Melbourne, Florida Internet Marketing then give Black Tie Digital Marketing a call today to see how we can help you!