UNTIL NOW HASHTAGS on Facebook have been plentiful, but served no function.

They’ve been a staple on Twitter for some time, allowing users to follow certain topics from political movements to what’s hot on telly.

All that is about to change though, with Facebook enabling hashtags in order to organise public conversations.

The company said in a blog post that users will be able to click a hashtag to see a feed of discussions about a particular topic.

For example, typing a number sign in front of “Savita” or “IrishSummer” or “GameOfThrones” will turn the words into a link that users can click on to find posts about those topics.

Facebook has said hashtags are a first step toward making it easier for users to find out what others are discussing, thus mending what CNET is calling the “missing link to pop culture”.

At first it appeared that the feature had only been rolled out in the US, but a quick search for the #IsThisWorking tag reveals that it is, in fact, working for users here in Ireland and beyond:

Facebook even has a product manager for hashtags Greg Lindley, who said:

We’ll continue to roll out more features in the coming weeks and months, including trending hashtags and deeper insights, that help people discover more of the world’s conversations.

The hashtags will conform to users’ privacy settings — so putting a hashtag in a post that’s only visible to your friends won’t make it show up for anyone other than your friends.

If following hashtags isn’t working for you yet Facebook has said it will make the clickable links available to all users in the coming weeks, so fret not.

Though hashtags haven’t worked on Facebook until now, many people were using them anyway, having grown accustomed to them on Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere.

#HashtagsForEveryone

Additional reporting by AP

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