Facebook Hashtags for #Business

By Lauren Williamson | @LaurenEW90

What started out as an ironic (or annoying) way to characterize your statuses has now actually become pretty useful. Yes, I’m talking about Facebook hashtags. By now you've seen them scroll down your newsfeed and maybe you've clicked on one to see what happens, but the question is: are you using them yet?

Hashtags can create some serious buzz for your business and using them to your advantage can benefit your social media strategy. A statement from Facebook to Adweek agrees: “If you are already using hashtags in an advertising campaign through other channels, you can amplify these campaigns by including your hashtags in Facebook advertising ... Any hashtags that you use on other platforms that are connected to your Facebook page will be automatically clickable and searchable on Facebook.”

Using hashtags on Facebook categorizes text, images and video to a single conversation and since hashtags for Facebook are still in their infancy, getting your name out now is important. Taking any campaigns your company has been using on Twitter and tweaking them for Facebook can impact the reach of your message.

One of the plus sides for Facebook is the ability to see multimedia when searching tags, versus simply seeing the links to photos or videos as is done in most Twitter feeds. The hashtags show up just like your own little mini-newsfeed and the viewer gets the full spectrum of your campaign just by scrolling down the page.

One of the challenges of Facebook hashtags is measuring how well they are working. Facebook doesn't have a comprehensive way of seeing what is “trending” yet, although the site indicates the feature will be available soon. Only time will tell if Facebook hashtags will reach the popularity and be used in the same way they are used on Twitter. But in the meantime, set reasonable goals for your company and evaluate if you are reaching your desired audience.

To learn more about how Facebook hashtags can help your business, call us at 1 (469) 248 0616, tweet @SocialMediaDel or email contact@socialmediadelivered.com.s209167.gridserver.com.