As Facebook hashtags roll out, what’s ahead for marketers?

The short answer: Nothing. Yet.

That’s because the darned things aren’t even rolling out to all users for a while. (See Facebook’s formal announcement from last week.)

Once they do, there will be substantial implications for marketers and brands.

For now, it’s mostly a matter of user experience. Users can now search Facebook more easily—combined with Graph Search, Facebook is making strides here—and, obviously, this move makes content discovery much easier.

A few months from now, when more (or all) users have the ability to use hashtags on Facebook, what will the rub be for marketers? Here are a few things that come to mind:

It’ll be easier to track “campaign” conversations on Facebook.

You know those campaign hashtags that brands use on Facebook—the ones they listed on all those Super Bowl ads this year? Well, those will actually be useful on Facebook once the hashtags are rolled out. Obviously, the volume won’t be as great on Facebook for most brands (there are far more tweets than status updates), but this should help brands looking to accurately track conversations around campaigns down the road, especially those without access to paid monitoring tools.