Move over Facebook, ‘Fast and Furious’ has carjacked the #f8 hashtag

By Digiday • April 12, 2016 •

Nerds who like Facebook, meet nerds who like fast cars.

Facebook’s annual developer conference, known as F8, opens today. Already tweets and social media posts about the affair, widely expected to put Facebook’s entire technological prowess on display, are everywhere.

So a little bit of trolling can be expected.

The eighth movie in the “Fast and Furious” series is set to open next year, and the franchise is using the #f8 hashtag to get some buzz going about the film. (It announced Monday that Scott Eastwood would be joining the cast of the movie.)

It’s working: Search for the #f8 hashtag on Twitter and, except for a single story about the Facebook conference, the top hits are photos of Eastwood and a tweet from the “Fast and Furious” featuring a photo of Eastwood with the hashtag prominently displayed (1,700 retweets and counting).

The movie has been using the #f8 hashtag on and off since it announced Charlize Theron would be in the film on April 8. (Before that, they used variations like #Fast8 and #FF8.)

Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody has a new protégé. Welcome @ScottEastwood to the Fast family. 4.14.17. #F8 pic.twitter.com/HsYxrKnS5E

— Fast & Furious (@FastFurious) April 11, 2016

According to Brandwatch, the #f8 hashtag has been used 1,300 times so far in the last month. There were spikes: The first was when the Theron casting was announced, while the second was the Eastwood announcement. Now, over the next few days, expect the Facebook conference tweets to take over: About 500 of the total 1,300 tweets using the hashtag include a reference to the movie, said Brandwatch analyst Kellan Terry.

People are noticing:

I love how the Fast & Furious franchise has also chosen the #F8 hashtag while Facebook’s developer conference is on. https://t.co/Bir9FDLyC9

— Olivia Solon (@oliviasolon) April 12, 2016

Searching the #F8 hashtag for details on the new #Facebook announcements and @FastFurious news just keeps showing up. -_-

— Laura Rafferty (@LooRaff) April 12, 2016

There might be some overlap between people still watching the “Fast” movies and those glued to techie announcements from Facebook, so this is probably a win.