Facebook is set to launch clickable hashtags, allowing users to search for and group discussions about a topic just as you can with Twitter, Instagram, Tumble and Pinterest.

People have already started to use hashtags on Facebook, but they are yet to be implemented properly. They will now be searchable in the Facebook search bar and should deliver results that show what other people and Pages are saying about an event.

It should now also be possible to click on hashtags that originate from other services, like Instagram, although exactly which Facebook is yet to go into specifics about. Clicking a Facebook hashtag will bring up a special news feed based around that set of words. It's also possible to control who sees what hashtags you post, keeping in line with the rest of Facebook's security features. 

You should start to see the Facebook hashtags appearing from today, with more plans for hashtags coming later in the year. Facebook is planning to implement trending hashtags as well as what it calls "deeper insights" which "help people discover more of the world's conversations".

This feature makes sense and has been an omission from Facebook for a long time. What difference it will make to Twitter, the home of the hashtag, remains to be seen.