Facebook Announces Functional Hashtags

After months of speculation, Facebook announced it will be adding functional hashtags to allow users to follow and participate in larger conversations. The official rollout has begun to a smaller segment of the community, in true Facebook fashion. Facebook's inclusion of hashtags is an additional way to tap into real-time chatter with the ultimate goal of driving more eyeballs for ad units.

When a hashtag is included in a post, clicking on it will pop out a feed that aggregates others posts that have been tagged with the same phrase. Here are some topline takeaways related to the new functionality:

Functionality Overview:

1. Facebook hashtags will function similarly to other social media platforms that currently utilize them, including Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.
2. Facebook hashtags will be public so clicking on the term #Friday, for example, will show you every public user or Facebook page that shares this specific tag.
3. Hashtags will be clickable, bringing users to a feed of comments from other Facebook Pages and people who have used the same hashtag.
4. Facebook users will also be able to search for hashtags, compose posts directly from a hashtag feed and click on hashtags that originated from other social media platforms, like Twitter or Instagram.
5. Facebook users will be able to control who views their posts, including those with hashtags.
6. Hashtags will be the first of several features rolling out across Facebook that will allow users to search and join conversations that are currently happening.

The question of spam has come up, as popular and generic hashtags will most likely become diluted as a result of the 1 billion+ user base. We fully expect Facebook to weed out spam from feeds, though these clickable hashtags could more easily surface strange/scammy status updates that have plagued Facebook and Twitter most notably in the past. 

That said, the hashtag has become a staple of social networks like Twitter and Instagram, and opening up the discovery of posts to the entire community changes the game. This could also be a play for Facebook to take some of Twitter’s spotlight as the main destination for breaking news. The hashtag is inherently real-time. The beauty of the hashtag is that they can make it easier for people to see what others are saying about a topic that's of interest to them. Like-minded people who aren’t friends in real-life/on-Facebook can engage in dialogue around popular or niche topics.

BuzzFeed’s John Herrman put it best, "Public posts with searchable hashtags are truly public and discoverable; they give your posts a larger but less familiar audience, and give you the unmistakable feeling that you’re no longer just talking to friends, but subject to the crushing scrutiny of the entire internet."

Download our Zeno Green Paper on Facebook hashtags