The rumors are true. Facebook is rolling out hashtags and now, a Facebook hashtag truly does exist as the social media giant officially announced the new feature after months of speculation.
Back in March, we reported on rumors already swirling that Facebook was considering adding Facebook hashtags, a feature often associated with social media rival Twitter, as a way to tie together social conversations on a particular topic.
In a post on the official Facebook Newsroom blog, Facebook Product Manager Greg Lindley wrote:
Starting today, hashtags will be clickable on Facebook. Similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest, hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you’ll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic.
Reactions to the news on the social site where hashtags are already king, Twitter, were mixed as news broke:
for obvious reasons Hashtag support on FB sounds like a horrible idea. /facepalm #hastags
— Brian Johnson (@therabbitshole) June 12, 2013
What do you think about #facebook adding #hastags? As a twitter user, I am excited about this addition. fb.me/LHGHVTsf
— ZPS (@aboutZPS) June 12, 2013
Lindley said users on the social media site can now:
- Search for specific hashtags from the Facebook search bar in order to surface conversations on trending topics.
- Click on hashtags originating on other services, for example Instagram.
- Write posts from the new Facebook hashtag feed and search results.
Lindley also hinted Facebook hashtags were only the first in a series of new features planned on Facebook in the next few weeks and months. Those new features will include “trending hashtags” and other insights to help users keep track of trending conversations on the social media networking giant.
More details on using the new Facebook hashtag feature are located on the Facebook Help Page.
Image: Facebook
Doesn’t surprise me and I’m not bothered by it. Just hoping that my friends don’t get out of control adding hashtags instead of actually using real sentences.
Anita Campbell
I know, Robert, hashtag pollution is very annoying. Use hashtags #InModeration. 🙂
– Anita
Joshua Sophy
I still believe the #hashtag will go down as one thing that revolutionized the Web, especially in regard to social media. I think this addition may actually take away from Facebook was about – actual friends and acquaintances re-connecting – and introducing the average user to an entirely new community.
If you wanted to use Facebook previously to connect with strangers who have a common interest, you’d go mad. It was terribly disorganized that way.
Just one question: People use full sentences on Facebook? #nowayjose
Anita Campbell
Josh, you said:
I totally agree! I still have a hard time figuring out who is sharing what and who is talking about what on Facebook. We get a ton of traffic from Facebook.com, but darned if I can tell who exactly is sending it and where/how articles are being mentioned. You need the Rosetta stone, a code cipher and GPS to figure it out.
– Anita
Deborah Shane
I love #hashtags and feel very loyal about using them on Twitter where they originated and work so well. Anita, I agree that FB is a kind of wild party, that I enjoy, but seems a free for all. I too get lots of traffic from FB but Twitter too. Let’s see how it goes. #inmoderation, indeed. Thanks Shawn.
# <– Its awkward to see that!
It’s about time. Hashtags have been valuable for websites like Twitter and Instagram. It also makes it easy for us users to search for the topics that we want with a single click.