Announcing the roll-out of the new feature, Facebook's Greg Lindley says in a post: “Starting today, hashtags will be clickable on Facebook. Similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest, hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you'll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic.”

Facebook users can now search for a particular hashtag from the search bar, click on hashtags originate on other services, such as Instagram and most importantly create posts directly from the hashtags feed and search results. Facebook also allows users to control the audience for their posts, including those with hashtags.

“Hashtags are just the first step to help people more easily discover what others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public conversations. 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,” adds Greg Lindley.

Availability of hashtags on Facebook indicates the growing competition between Facebook and other social networking giants, as they step up their efforts to tap the growing mobile users and improve revenues.