Have you heard? Facebook is thinking about implementing the hashtag to bolster graph search.
I personally love using hashtags. On Twitter I follow mostly professional tags like:
- #CRO – tweets about conversion rate optimization
- #SEO – tweets about search engine optimization
- #SocBiz – tweets about managing a social business
- #RunChat – tweets about running optimization (hah! But seriously…)
On Instagram I tend to turn into an old cat lady and only follow my friends and #CatsofInstagram, but on Pinterest my range spreads out to things like #recipes, #TravelDestinations and #running (yes, I love running).
Nike Ad on Pinterest: My Sport is Your Sport’s Punishment #running #runner
On Facebook I follow various sites, brands, products and famous persons related to my interests.
How Facebook Hashtags Might Work
It’s currently being speculated that Facebook users and marketers would use hashtags to follow live events the way that people currently use Twitter.
For example, when a show like the Grammy’s goes live everyone tweets their thoughts using hashtag #Grammys (or whatever the case may be). If Facebook introduces hashtags, fans could follow live events from the comfort of their own Facebook account where they spend much of the day anyway.
This is a big deal to brands since Facebook hosts far more users than any other social network – including Twitter.
Why Marketers Should Be Excited About Facebook Hashtags
Simply put, marketers should be excited about Facebook hashtags because more customers are on Facebook than any other network.
Twitter is a great channel for reaching African-American adults between 18 and 29 who live in urban areas, according to data from Pew Research; however, if you are interested in targeting users outside of that demographic (with hashtags), you’ll probably want to use Facebook.
When we look at social media usage the numbers go as follows:
- 67% use Facebook
- 15% use Twitter
- 15% use Pinterest
- 13% use Instagram
- 6% use Tumblr
By promoting your brand or live event on Facebook through hashtags you’ll be able to (potentially) reach a much broader audience. That’s usually an upside when choosing a marketing channel.
Facebook Hashtags and Privacy
I don’t think the introduction of Facebook hashtags is in any way a Twitter Killer.
Most Twitter profiles are public therefore we tweet with the expectation that others will see our messages. However, many of us keep our Facebook updates locked down to just friends.
While hashtags will make searching for topics easier in Facebook’s graph search, there may be some hesitancy from users to start making their updates public.
We’ll just have to wait and see how Facebook is going to handle displaying hashtags before making any changes to our privacy settings.
Are you excited for Facebook hashtags? Would you rather follow live events on Facebook or on Twitter?
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This post was written by Kristina Allen, head of social marketing at an ad agency in Miami, FL. You can follow her on Twitter @allenkristina.
Shelby Sorensen
I think that the hashtag has definitely been taken up by storm. Like other social media tools, there are definitely people that have their reservations about hashtags on Facebook. Hopefully it gets easier and more and more people are going to be willing to accept it on other social media platforms. Social platforms must work it out though so that it works correctly on their sites.