Hashtags have arrived on Facebook.

As mentioned on The Social Media Hat, Facebook recently made an announcement that they will be rolling out the feature to users in the coming weeks. Up until now hashtags appeared as plain text in Facebook and were not able to be used to group search results by keyword or topic.

What this means

When you type a search by keyword or hashtag (for example #stateoforigin) in the Search bar in Facebook it groups together all the public posts from Facebook Pages and Profiles into one search listing – you need to make sure the hashtag already exists, so once you see someone use a hashtag you can click on it or type a new search. You can also find hashtags that are trending on Twitter or Google +.

What about my private posts, will they show up when someone searches using a hashtag?

In short no. Any posts that you set to private or viewable only by your Friends, will continue to be only viewable by your network. Only Public posts will appear when someone you don’t know searches on Facebook using a hashtag.

Try it today and see how it helps you find out what fellow Facebook users think about a particular topic or event.

Related articles

• Facebook Hashtags for Brands: What You Need to Know (jonloomer.com)
• How Sports Teams Can Start Using Hashtags on Facebook (sportsnetworker.com)