Facebook announced that it is adopting the hashtag and we think that is #awesome. They are a little late to the party though. Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and Flickr have incorporated the hashtag already.
So what’s the benefit of adding hashtags now? And what will the interwebz do with all of those memes making fun of people using hashtags on Facebook?
Well, as most of us know from using Twitter, hashtags make it easy to organize groups of people around ideas. Hashtags brought a new element to social media – trends. And trends are huge. No, not parachute pants or side pony tails, but trending topics. Hashtags help people participate in global conversations about current events and real-time commentary.
In a lot of ways, this move by Facebook to incorporate the hashtag seems like they are just riding the wave. That’s not the way people typically use Facebook. However, the company may have some more tricks up its sleeve with its recently announced updates.