Remember back in June when Facebook implemented hashtags to their site? I personally wasn’t a fan of the addition, simply because Facebook’s social network doesn’t exactly promote natural viral spread amongst its users the way Twitter does. The reason for this is because Facebook is mostly built as a website for friends and family to connect with each other, as well as allowing businesses to seep through these connections for advertising and marketing. Because of these connections, it’s somewhat of a closed-off, private social network that doesn’t allow for full public access the same way Twitter does. For hashtags and metadata collection to have a real impact, they need to be tracked within a large public space that isn’t limited to the X amount of friends John Doe is connected to.
Research done by EdgeRank Checker recently proves that the addition have hashtags have had no viral effect on Facebook. In fact, Facebook updates without hashtags had more of a viral reach than updates that did. EdgeRank hypothesized the reason behind this was due to users simply not clicking on the hashtags because brands/users weren’t using hashtags properly. However, I personally believe this is due to the closed access on Facebook that I mentioned previously.
Whatever the case, Facebook tried to ride Twitter’s wave a bit too slate. Now, status updates are littered with pointless hashtags that don’t even lead to anything. Thanks, Mark Zuckerberg!
[via CNET]