Facebook has rolled out reaction buttons for posts. These emoji-style buttons allow users to do more than like what you post. They can love it. They can laugh at what you said, and express amazement, sadness (unlike) and anger (hate).
While some page owners and marketers don’t care for the latest update, the new buttons are going to provide better insight into what your target audience wants. We’ve already seen fewer people taking the time to comment on posts. Reactions will tell us how people actually feel about video, images, memes and textual content. Until now, we could only determine what users liked or didn’t like based on actual “likes” and comments.
Letting users express themselves with simple clicks and taps should also help engagement, even if a significant number of people express anger about a post.
I’m eager to see the reactions on the several Facebook pages I manage in the coming weeks. It’s going to take some time for this to catch on since use of the new buttons requires an app update for those using Facebook on a mobile device.
Have you seen any surprising feedback as a result of the new buttons? I’d love to hear about it.
