Facebook has rolled out Reactions, its anticipated extension of the Like button. Now you can express a range of emotions — you can like, love, laugh at, be surprised, get angry, or show sadness towards a post.
The company acknowledges it’s responding to the widespread sentiment from Facebook users that an upgrade to the Like button was needed:
”We’ve been listening to people and know 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.”
Over a year of research was conducted before making this change, including surveys and focus groups around which emotions people would most often want to express. Facebook also considered the top emojis and stickers currently being used on the network to guide which reactions it should offer.
To make use of this feature on the Facebook app, long-press on the like button to bring up the options to react in another way. On desktop, hover your cursor over the like button to bring up the menu of additional reactions.
What Facebook’s Reactions Mean For Marketers
Facebook says, at least for the time being, all reactions are treated equally. When someone uses a reaction, even sadness or anger, it is an indication to Facebook they want to see more of that type of post. Over time the company will look into weighting each type of reaction differently.
At this time, reactions shouldn’t adversely affect a post’s organic reach or placement in the news feed. It may benefit Page owners, the company explains, through giving them a better understanding of how people generally feel about the content published by the page. When it comes to ad delivery, the same thing applies. All reactions are treated the same as likes.
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