How do Facebook hashtags affect your personal profiles? Many businesses and pages can be seen rolling out hashtags with their updates, photos and statuses, but what does this mean for personal profiles? It seems a number of people are asking. We'll help clear up any confusion.
1. Who can see my hashtags?
For public pages, anyone can see updates marked with hashtags. However, for personal profiles,
Facebook always looks at the setting on the status update. If it is marked "Friends", only your friends will see the posts with hashtags. However, if your status update is marked "Public" anyone will be able to see it.
Takeaway: Your statuses privacy setting always trumps the hashtag.
2. What are hashtags for?
Hashtags are a way to mark a status update with a category or description. For example, if you've posted a picture of your summer vacation, you could mark the post with #summervacation. Then, your friends can easily click on the hashtag and view all of your #summervacation updates, photos and more, with one click. Think of it as a social-version of labeling your updates.
3. Beware of becoming a hashtag-a-holic.
Once you begin, you may quickly learn to enjoy tagging updates. You may feel more social media savvy than your 16 year old niece. While the goal of tagging updates is to add to Facebook's social atmosphere, please be cautioned that you could make your friends upset with you in real time.
Here are a few tips to keep you from losing your friends:
Tip: Avoid long tags
Hashtags are fun and even a bit useful. However, please remember that a run-on of more than three words is difficult to read.
#summervacation
That one is easy to read and even adds to a post.
#bestvacationofmylife
This one is more cumbersome and has less of an impact - there is really no reason to use that tag as it's probably not relevant to anyone other than you. But, it can be fun to use once in a while.
#summervacationshouldlastforever
Woah! Slow down slugger. Tags with more than three words are difficult to read and your friends will soon hate you with a passion if each of your updates come with one (or more!) of these bad boys. Remember the whole point of Facebook is being social. Don't pull out a whopper of a tag and expect all of your friends to read your updates with willingness and anticipation. You're not a celebrity. Yet.
Tip: No more than 3
We wouldn't recommend using more than three tags to a status update. While tagging updates is a ton of fun, the goal isn't to make anyone's eye's gloss over looking at the long list of hashtags that accompany your update.
Choose three of the most relevant tags you can think of and always remember your audience. No one likes a person that tags more than a graffiti artist. Keep it in control.
#hopeyoulikedthattip #thinkyoucanagree #toomanytagsaretoomanytags #yougetthepoint
Yuck!
Tip: Kick it up a notch
Be smart when tagging your updates. If you've got a class reunion coming up, tag the updates, photos and posts with the same tag all of the time. Your classmates may catch on and it can quickly become a great way to share everyone's content under one tag.
The hashtag should be easy to read and remember. If you see other's posting content about the class reunion, encourage them to use the hashtag. There are many Facebook users that still don't understand what hashtags are all about. Once they see tags in action, they'll never forget.
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The point of all this is to have fun on Facebook and enjoy one more neat feature. The second point is not to become frenemies with those that follow your Facebook feed. Remember your audience when posting, updating and tagging.
Be social!
