Facebook Hashtags

Recently, our public relations franchise agency has learned the news about Facebook now integrating the use of hashtags (#) the way users of Instagram or Twitter are familiar with.  Because Facebook has introduced hashtags, it is allowing users to follow and find trending topics online.  Although we are not surprised that Facebook finally jumped on the bandwagon, we are very happy that this change has finally happened. 

Our Chicago public relations franchise firm thinks it’s a bit of a shame that Facebook did not support hashtags sooner because it truly would have generated more of a buzz online with trending topics like elections, tragedies, gossip, etc.  For a long time now, Twitter has been the platform where many users went to find out about top stories and breaking news on the web locally and even around the world.  Our PR firm thinks it is smart that Facebook is finally competing with Twitter but we also recognize it may take some time to build the hashtag communities the way many on Twitter or Instagram have already been established. 

One great thing aspect of Facebook supporting hashtags is that any users who shared their images or posts from Twitter or Instagram directly to Facebook with hashtags included, those hashtags are now “activated” and link to the topic or phrase.  Another added benefit of the hashtags on Facebook is that even if the post contain a hashtag from the past or even future ones posted, users can still limit who sees their posts.  Our public relations firm thinks that the universal use of hashtags will create an online community where individuals will be encouraged to post publically friendly content.  This will also generate much more activity and interaction on social media platforms through mutual friends or even beyond friendships and share interests with groups of hashtagged pages. 

Our main reason why we are excited about Facebook using hashtags is because Facebook is so largely used across the world, and we are very active participants on Facebook and we encourage our clients to be active online as well.  There is no doubt that Facebook hashtags are going to lead to an increase of brand interaction and advocacy.  Hashtags will allow more users to see posts from outside their immediate circle and to engage with the content.  This is a great feature for our clients utilizing franchise public relations to boost their brands image online.

All in all, we are excited to see this change in the way Facebook will function.  If you have any comments or opinions to Facebook supporting hashtags, please feel free to comment or contact our Franchise PR Firm.