Study: Facebook Posts With Hashtags Have Less Viral Reach Than Posts Without Hashtags

Back in June, Facebook rolled out functional hashtags on its social network and touted the potential benefits for marketers. However, the company noted that hashtags “do not impact your distribution or engagement in News Feed on either desktop or mobile.” A study from EdgeRank Checker finds not only that Facebook posts with hashtags don’t see a boost in exposure, but that these posts actually see less viral reach than posts without hashtags.

The hypothesis was that brands using hashtags could hop onto trending topics and get additional exposure and viral reach. However, EdgeRank Checker found that posts with hashtags have less viral reach, on average, than posts without hashtags:

Facebook posts including hashtags also have less engagement per fan and organic reach per fan than posts without hashtags:

EdgeRank Checker even looked into whether or not bigger Pages see more viral reach with hashtags. The finding was the same as before: posts from Pages with 1 million+ fans had less viral reach than posts from large Pages without hashtags. Engagement per fan was also lower for posts from larger Pages with hashtags:

Viral reach was also lower for Pages of all types including hashtags in their posts:

For comparison’s sake, EdgeRank Checker looked into whether hashtags on Twitter increase the likelihood of retweets. The answer is “yes.”

Why, then, are hashtags on Facebook not proving helpful for brands? EdgeRank Checker surmises that hashtags aren’t getting many clicks, which limits the improvement in viral reach for posts including the new feature. The company also hypothesizes that brands aren’t using hashtags wisely