Facebook announced on Wednesday that it would begin rolling out a new hashtag feature to the popular social networking site. The "#" symbol has been used by sites like Twitter and Instagram to group conversations together to make them easily searchable.
Facebook revealed they would make it possible for users to put a hashtag symbol over a word, it will become a clickable link that will show a feed, which aggregates all the other users who have been hashtagging that same subject.
The service would be very lucrative for advertising companies who wish to utilize the new system. Facebook is not allowing companies to get involved with using the hashtag service for advertising at its launch.
Mashable reported, reps from Facebook have confirmed that hashtags are off limits to marketers for the time being. Instead, they are encouraging marketers to use hashtags in advertising now that Facebook will be able to contribute to the spread of a hashtag along with Twitter.
Hashtags can be very good for covering major events and spreading the conversation. For example, the premiere of a new television show can have a hashtag and allow users to follow the conversation across several different forms of social media. By encouraging advertisers who already use Facebook to start to utilize hashtags, the company will bolster it's advertising chops anyway.
Advertising Age believes hashtags will likely bolster Facebook's Graph Search once mentions start to provide a the company with a better idea of exactly what people are searching for and talking about on the site. They believe the current system of "likes" aren't enough to adequately express what people are actively enjoying since a like is so easy to do. It's often more of a perfunctory social gesture than an indication of what people actually care about on Facebook.
It's unclear what their plans are for integrating advertisers in the future since, unlike Twitter, most Facebook accounts are private and not public. It's too soon to tell how the social media giant will incorporate that fact into their newest service.
