Facebook introduces clickable hashtags

The distinction between Facebook and Twitter is getting a bit more blurred. Mark Zuckerberg’s social media company is introducing clickable hashtags on Facebook starting today (June 12).

“Similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest, hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion,” Greg Lindley, Facebook’s product manager, wrote in a blog post. “When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you'll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic.”

Facebook stated that while users could use hashtags—marked by placing a “#” sign in front of a word—on its website in the past, the company decided to make them clickable after seeing a rise in user engagement during key moments.

“During primetime television alone, there are between 88 and 100 million Americans engaged on Facebook—roughly a Super Bowl-sized audience every single night,” Lindley wrote. “The recent ‘Red Wedding’ episode of Game of Thrones, received over 1.5 million mentions on Facebook, representing a significant portion of the 5.2 million people who watched the show.”

By implementing clickable hashtags, Facebook users will now be able to search for a specific hashtag in the search bar, click on hashtags to see all posts on any given topic, and write posts directly from the hashtag feed. Of course, none of this is new for those already on other social networking sites, especially Twitter.

Facebook has stated that this new feature is the first of several that will be rolled out in the coming months.