By now, you have surely heard about hashtags becoming functional on Facebook. If you are late to the game, hashtags are used on other social media channels to categorize content in order to make it and other content pieces like it easier to find. Facebook recently announced that they would be implementing this functionality and it should be more widely available as time goes on. While some people are excited about this new function and it might even be a smart move when it comes to advertising, I personally don't like it at all. We seem to be in an odd place in the evolution of Facebook where it seems to want to be everything to everyone. Remember Facebook, nobody wants to be a Jack of all trades and a master of none.
Facebook is becoming PinterFaceTwitIgram
This might sound silly, but everything that we all used to know and love about Facebook seems to be a distant memory. Facebook USED to provide a well-rounded and user friendly experience which led to it being the #1 place that people spent time on the internet. Currently, Facebook is acting like a jealous 2 year old trying to snatch up features of other social networks that it wants to play with.
- Bigger, more visual Newsfeed & Timeline - Pinterest
- Encouraging people to use shorter, more concise text in posts for more engagement - Twitter
- Facebook bought Instagram, therefore more Instagram integration - Instagram
- Introduction of hashtags - Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram
Perhaps this is just the evolution of the social network and eventually they will all be the same, however currently they are all very different. Each channel has its own culture and users act accordingly. No matter what Facebook tries to do, these other channels will ALWAYS win. They were the innovators of these features. Facebook can rush to catch up, however they are too big, have too many users and have been around too long to switch things up so much in such a small period of time. Facebook can sample all it wants from other social channels; however Facebook will still only just be Facebook. If the little guys can innovate and change the game, why cant Facebook?