1. With Hashtags you get the following benefits:

• Searching: Using hash tags allows effective search of posts. A user can search for a topic based on its #hashtag using the top search bar or the search in the Hashtag app.
• Automatic Permission Checking: When viewing or searching topics, posts that are restricted to private groups are hidden and inaccessible to users that are not a part of the team. This re-enforces the use of teams for defining a specific subset of people and hashtags for defining the subject of conversations
• Automatic Threading: When commenting or replying to a post, you add the entire conversation or thread to the relevant topic once you include the appropriate hashtag in any single comment.
• Reduce Public Team Membership: Following hashtags has the benefit to help reduce the number of public teams you are a member of but ensures that you still receive notifications of relevant posts.

2. Hashtags/Topics come with the following functionality:

• Browse of all hashtag based topics in your network
• Ability to filter hashtags you follow and the ones you don’t
• Ability to follow (or un-follow) any hashtag
• Ability to view the list of people following a hashtag
• Ability to edit and assign a color, description to any user defined hashtag
• Narrow down search results further by adding additional hashtags to the filter
• Admins have a setting to control who can create new hashtags