Facebook today rolled out reactions, a much-anticipated upgrade of the like button that many users have been wanting. Now you can not only like something; you can express other emotions about posts including love, laugh, be surprised, get mad or display sadness.
In their announcement post, Facebook acknowledged the need users have had for a long time to do more than just like posts:
“We’ve been listening to people and knew that there should be more ways to easily and quickly express how something you see in News Feed makes you feel. That’s why today we are launching Reactions, an extension of the Like button, to give you more ways to share your reaction to a post in a quick and easy way.”
Facebook had conducted more than a year of research around the world before they implemented the change, including doing global surveys, running focus groups to understand which emotions people would want to express the most and looking at which stickers and emoticons were already used the most on the network.
You can use the reactions yourself on the Facebook app by holding down the like button to bring up the choice of reactions. On a desktop computer, you simply hover over the like button to bring up the additional options.
How Facebook Reactions Will Impact Marketers
As of right now, all reactions are dealt with equally, meaning there are no negative actions taken on posts that see lots of anger, it just indicates to Facebook that the users who left a reaction want to see more of that type of content. In the future, they may weigh posts differently depending on the reactions they receive.
Reactions should help Facebook’s pages owners get a better understanding of the way their content is received by people on the platform. Allowing them to tailor their updates more to what their fans are wanting to see.
On Facebook ads, all reactions are currently treated as likes, and there are no adverse effects from users expressing anger or sadness about an ad they see.
What do you think about the new Facebook reactions?
John is a tea-drinking, 43-year-old (not old, just well-seasoned) digital marketer who remains intensely curious about new ways to market online. He believes the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing, it is about telling stories that resonate enough with people that they want to do business with you.
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