Facebook has decided to introduce to its users the active hashtags, embracing what Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and Tumblr already have. According to Facebook, this allows you to “add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion”. Many users were happy with the new feature, including many social media managers, but let’s analyze the concept of Facebook Hashtags.
Advantages
- Hashtags allow you indeed to feel part of a larger discussion and search afterwards for a specific group of people that are sharing similar content with you. Either for personal or professional use, a huge audience of Facebook may be organized, according to their hashtags.
- Facebook allows to click on hashtags that derive from different services. For example, if you upload a photo on Instagram and share it on your Facebook profile, the hashtags that you used for Instagram will also be clickable on Facebook.
- The hashtag feed will be useful for any search you’ll be making and it will even allow you to compose a new post directly from the feed and the search results.
- Hashtags will be significantly useful for social media managers, since they will allow them to reach a bigger audience and have a market research on each hashtag, just the way they do on other networks.
- Facebook may transform into a new (and bigger) Twitter-like network, evolving into a big media feed and allowing us to search for any current event through hashtags. What’s more, the ability to click on a hashtag that derived from another network gives to Facebook the ability to win even more loyal fans, since hashtags were a favorite feature on all the other networks.
Disadvantages
- Hashtags are extending the reach of a post. This might be useful for professionals, but not necessarily for all the users. From now on, you must be even more careful about your public posts that come along with hashtags, since they reach a really bigger audience. Don’t forget that Facebook is a vast network and your posts are turning more public than ever.
- This evolution of Facebook might not be embraced by everyone. Up to now, Facebook was supposed to be used more as a network for people and less than a network for pure content sharing. From now on, content will be more important than ever and hashtags will change its nature. Hopefully this will transform it into a better version of Twitter and not into a worse one.
- A feature is not for everyone. We are not really sure yet whether Facebook’s decision to implement clickable hashtags is wise and useful for its future use or just an imitating act for something that all the other popular networks had. We are really curious to see how it will work and whether it will be as successful as they wish.
Conclusion
To sum up, this is a very interesting feature for Facebook. It is definitely a change that we’re waiting to see in action. From a professional point of view, we’ll have to work on this new feature and use it in a way that will benefit the brands. There’s a fine line between proper use of hashtags and excessive use of them. We know that from other networks and we also need to be aware of that on Facebook. After all, hashtags may increase the reach of a post for a brand and these might be really positive news.
However, from a personal point of view, make sure you are careful with your security and use hashtags wisely. It’s a good occasion to get live updates on news from Facebook and maybe find new friends with the same interests, but you don’t want to have a post accidentally public on anyone that might be searching for the specific hashtag you’re using. If you get this clear, then you’ll definitely enjoy hashtags!