The Top Three Reasons to Use the New Facebook Hashtag

Photo Credit: Mashable.com

In case you haven’t already heard, Facebook has finally adopted the hashtag symbol in an effort to keep up with its competitors. This includes Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. For businesses, this new addition to Facebook is revolutionary and has the potential to significantly increase brand awareness. You might be wondering how and why hashtags are important. To help provide more insight, our team has put together the top three reasons to use the Facebook hashtag.

1. The most obvious advantage of using Facebook hashtags is that your business can establish a greater online presence than ever before. The new feature enables hashtags to be clickable and searchable, much like they are on other social media sites. Hashtags are great for categorizing messages and starting online conversations with users interested in a particular topic. Before Facebook implemented this strategy, many business pages were virtually invisible. Now, by incorporating hashtags into Facebook posts, companies can increase their digital presence through the search mechanism. 
2. Another great benefit of using the new Facebook hashtag is the ability to reach your company’s target audience by creating your own unique hashtag. In a recent blog article, the experts at Social Media Examiner, one of our favorite social media go-to sites, shared a prime example as to why unique hashtags are more effective than generic ones, such as #gardening, #interiordesign, #architecture, #marketing, etc. According to the article, since many users incorporate generic hashtags, their posts are likely to be pushed down the “Newsfeed” more quickly and may not relate directly to the topic on hand. Conversely, by developing customized hashtags, conversations are easier to follow and are targeted to specific audiences. 
3. As many of you know, Twitter prides itself on real-time conversations, whereas Facebook is used more sporadically. Now, with the Facebook hashtag, real-time conversations on Facebook are quickly becoming all the rage. And, one major perk is that you’re not limited to 140 characters like with tweets. This feature allows users to interact with each other on a deeper level, rather than quick sound bites. 

If you are interested in learning more about Facebook hashtags as well as the benefits of social media marketing, please feel free to post your questions and comments below, or contact the ECPR team at info@eberlycollardpr.com.