Over the years, Facebook has borrowed a few notable features from Twitter, including adding verified accounts and introducing the options to mention other users with the “@” symbol and “follow” influencers. But on Wednesday, Facebook introduced a feature popular on Twitter that may have a much bigger impact on its revenue: hashtags.
Facebook announced in a blog post Wednesday that it is rolling out a series of hashtag features in the coming weeks, including clickable hashtags — available today — and trending hashtags, which should be available soon. The move is billed as a way to “bring conversations more to the forefront,” but as with most features Facebook introduces these days, advertising revenue is certainly a big part of it.
For all their similarities as leaders in the social networking space, Facebook and Twitter have relied on two significantly different marketing pitches to date. Facebook’s strong suit its treasure trove of data, which advertisers can use to target users based on content shared on the site and sites they visit after leaving the social network. Twitter, on the other hand, has excelled at giving marketers a way to participate in real-time conversations. Continue ->
Article: Seth Fiegerman, Mashable