Should you be using hashtags on Facebook?
If I had a dollar for every time I got asked about hashtags I'd give JK Rowling a run for her money. Particularly when it comes to instagram. But I'm not here to yammer on about instagram today, I'm here to talk about Facebook.
You see, everyone has that one pet hate. Mine? When people share their insta posts straight over to Facebook and leave their hashtags in the Facebook post. It REALLY grinds my gears and my eye develops a little twitch.
To understand why this is my pet hate, we need to go back in time to 2013 when Facebook decided to introduce them onto the platform. The year prior, Facebook purchased instagram for $1 billion dollars. Yes, billion with a 'b'.
At the time, they had to work out a way to grow instagram and decided that introducing hashtags to the Facebook platform (which were already being used in insta) would be the way to get people familiar with it. Remember back in the day, everyone would share all of their personal pics straight from insta to facebook and it would say 'Shared from instagram'. Another tactic to get us to get used to insta and get users of Facebook using insta.
Hashtags have only been around on Facebook since June 2013, and three months later, research from EdgeRank Checker found that using hashtags on Facebook has zero positive effect on reach. Posts without hashtags outperform those with hashtags.
Granted, this data is old BUT think about it logically, when have you ever searched for a hashtag on Facebook(this does NOT include within Facebook groups - I'm part of a mastermind that has a great system of sorting posts and questions using hashtags e.g. #systems #pricing which will then show posts within the group that have been tagged this way).
I always like to take any questions like these back to human psychology. It looks spammy to see hashtags on posts on Facebook (especially in big paragraphs like we see on insta). One or two is fine (when you're using it in context). Remember to respect the platform and think about how you use it and what you engage with.
The Resilience Project do this really well. During their talks and workshops, there's a story related to a boy who can't say 'this', instead, he says 'dis'. But I digress - there's a heartwarming anecdote involved and they use the hashtag within context.
So, what if you like to share your insta post straight over to Facebook? I recommend jumping onto Facebook after you share it over and just delete your hashtags - simple and effective :)