Even Facebook Has a Hashtag Now

After months of experimentation, Facebook has finally joined the circle of social media websites by adopting hashtags. In a recent news release, Facebook announced the full implementation of hashtags much like how Twitter, the most notable hashtag user online, utilizes them. Facebook users can click on fully-functional hashtags to follow trends and updates from TV shows, current events, movies, and so on. Clicking on  #NBAFinals, for example, will lead you to posts that carry the same hashtag.

Denoted by the number sign, a hashtag lets users find posts and other content that carry the same metadata code. Contrary to popular belief, Twitter didn't invent the hashtag; it had already been used extensively in Internet relay chat (IRC) rooms years before. By putting a hashtag on a post or update, users can look for posts or updates of a particular topic with relative ease. Today, social media marketing experts will likely use hashtags to get their messages across to clients better.

In addition to Facebook posts, Facebook's hashtag system can also function on other social media sites such as Instagram and Twitter. You can say that the hashtag makes the world even smaller, which is nothing less of a benefit to casual and commercial users. This universal hashtag feature is far different from Twitter's hashtag, in which its hashtag system only worked on tweets. The hashtag will surely change the way people use Facebook in the years to come.