03 Apr Facebook Adopts the Hashtag?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook is working on incorporating the hashtag, one of Twitter’s most iconic markers, into its service by using the symbol as a way to group conversations.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, the hashtag—a word or phrase preceded by the “#” pound symbol—is a way for people to collate many Twitter messages about a single news event or topic. Typically you will see the most recent and popular public topics and events as “trending”, meaning they have the most number of overall tweets containing that subject using a hashtag. Some fans of even use the hashtag as humorous or creative expression! For instance, if you were talking about the weather being 28 one morning and 76 the next day on Twitter you might end it with #justanotherdayinatlanta.

Facebook is testing the ability to allow users to click on a hashtag and pull up all posts about similar topics or events, giving users more reason to stay logged in and see more ads. Instagram, acquired by Facebook last year, already uses hashtags, allowing users to sort photos by the symbol.

Twitter and Facebook have always been polar opposites in the world of social media: Facebook being comprised of people you know (friends and family) and Twitter being a real-time broadcast of your message to people you’d like to know.

Facebook first entered Twitter’s “turf” by adopting the @ symbol to tag users. What do you think of Facebook’s hashtag effort? Share your thoughts by commenting below or posting to our Facebook page! Make sure you include #FacebookHashtag in your post 🙂