About a month ago, a “friend” on Facebook asked “why is everyone creating statuses and leaving comments with hashtags?”.  It was apparent that she didn’t understand the concept of using hashtags (#).  Ironically, she isn’t alone. There are quite a few less social meda savvy individuals that aren’t hip to this communication style that was created about 5 years ago on Twitter.  What started out as probably a simple act of sarcasm, has now turned into a muti-billion dollar marketing method used by companies, celebrities, and everyday people.

 

What the hashtag does is identify a subject or thought and group them together (which makes it easier for others to connect with people/things/conversations of the same interest).  As stated above, Twitter was the first social media application that saw the usage of the hashtag.  The symbols’ popularity grew to the point that advertisers saw its marketing potential.  Most companies will jump on anything that can and will equate to dollars.  But what Twitter probably didn’t expect is that the hashtag would eventually be used on other social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Instagram).

 

It was recently reported that Facebook are making plans to configure their systems to recognize the hashtag. According to WSJ, “Facebook is testing whether to follow Twitter’s lead and allow users to click on a hashtag to pull up all posts about similar topics or events so it can quickly index conversations around trending topics and build those conversations up, giving users more reason to stay logged in and see more ads.”

 

Since Facebook is a much larger social network than Twitter, the possibilities of securing billions in advertising revenue is the main factor why the hashtag is very important.  Last year, Facebook generated $4.3 million in advertising.  In comparison, Twitter only generated a fraction of that. This just adds fuel to the flame that already exists between the two.

 

The hashtag concept, overall, is a brilliant one. It makes searches much more convenient and less time consuming. But, will the hashtag become an aggravation like some of the other components on Facebook. For instance, Facebook timelines are congested with pop-up advertisements and pages that your friends liked. If the hashtag is incorporated, will users see all related posts and/or comments related to that subject on their timeline?  Let’s hope not…because that will be an #EPICFAIL.