Introducing the new Facebook Reactions
So Facebook are feeding our ongoing need to add an emoji to everything we post or respond to. The ‘Like’ button doesn’t quite work with all Facebook posts and it can often lead to misinterpretation. We all feel awkward ‘liking’ someone’s bad news posts but currently that’s all we can do to say we’ve read and acknowledged.
But soon, with the new Facebook Reactions feature we’ll have an array of ‘emotions’ to choose from – introducing Love, Haha, Yay, Wow, Sad and finally, Angry.
Facebook consulted with sociologists to help decide what they think their users would use most – and the new Reactions seem to cover most emotions that we’re likely to share. In the ‘mobile’ world we now live in, hitting a Reaction button should work well. But the question is – will this reduce the number of comments we write? Probably…
For Facebook business pages, the number of Reactions they receive will be valuable and shouldn’t be ignored. Like online reviews, the more Love’s and Wow’s, the better. How people are reacting to a brand or business’s posts, even with just a click of a button, will give a great insight into their customer’s perception. Page owners will also be able to see the ‘reactions’ to all their posts within page insights in the same way that it currently shows all their likes.
Ireland and Spain are the lucky guinea pigs who are trialling the Reactions first, their mainly national base of friends was the reason for this and also because one is English speaking and the other obviously not.
As of yet there has been no mention when all users will be able to express their Reactions – but we’ll be sure to let you know as soon as we hear anything.
As always – any questions tweet me @michellecarvill or email michelle@carvillcreative.co.uk.
Michelle Carvill, best selling business author, speaker, founder and Director at Carvill - the social media marketing agency. For information about how the team at Carvill can help you - simply get in touch or visit our website for more information.