Is the # Hashtag coming to Facebook soon?

As the rivalry between the two biggest Social media giants is getting intensified by the day, report has it that Facebook is working to incorporate the hashtag on its site to group users conversations just like it’s done on Twitter. Tagging of people on posts using the @ sign is already allowed on Facebook but the addition of hashtags will open up a whole new chapter for Facebook and its users.

The hashtag will allow users to follow trending topics on Facebook and around the web easily as it will make it easier to find other people discussing the same topic. When the hashtag is clicked it will quickly pull up all posts about the topic. This will give users even more reasons to stay logged in on the site and see more ads.

With the recent release of the Facebook Graph search it will be easy to index contents with hashtags. And this will easily group users of same interest outside friends to share and follow a topic. The hashtag will expand the search functionality of the Graph search beyond the information by friends into public posts trending around the world.

If you are wondering what a hashtag is, it’s simply a word or phrase with the # symbol prefixed on it, for example the word #Netmediablog. And of what importance is it to a user? The hashtag will allow you to easily find other conversations of the same topic.

The hashtags also serve some marketing purposes, some companies these days have invented hashtags as their secondary brand for their marketing messages.  The hashtag has played a major role in Twitter’s marketing efforts and Facebook also want to tap into the stream. The Facebook hashtag will redefine the way brands are tagged on updates, the Facebook hashtag will change the way brands are tagged in conversations and this will help brands relate better and in real-time with its users and this will really influence social media relationships as brands can now be able to reply users directly on the hashtag stream.

Facebook can also introduce ‘Sponsored hashtags’ and trends to compete with Twitter’s ad products. This has always been a battle of wealth and Facebook could really hurt Twitter’s revenue with the hashtags.

Must Read: Using Twitter Hashtags to improve visibility on Twitter

Do you want to see the hashtag come to Facebook? Do you have any contribution to the topic? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Remember to subscribe to my RSS feed.