Facebook goes beyond the “like” button by introducing new reaction emojis.
“Like” isn’t always the right sentiment for posts- and due to popular demand, Facebook is now offering new options. Facebook “reactions,” which consist of five emoting emojis, started rolling out to Facebook’s nearly 1.6 billion users around the globe Wednesday.
By simply holding the “like” button on mobile, five animated emojis pop up, giving you the option to choose which new emotions you wish to share when commenting on a status update. Love, haha, wow, sad and angry are the new options for expressing your reactions. Since the debut of these status reactions, user’s feed posts will now show a tally of the reactions that friends and followers are posting.
Facebook makes it clear that their reactions are not designed to capture the full range of human emotions. This new feature gives people a fast and simple way to express thoughts or feelings in a positive, supportive way.
“Not every moment you want to share is happy,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently wrote in a post. “Sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating. Our community has been asking for a dislike button for years, but not because people want to tell friends they don’t like their posts. People want to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotions.”
Facebook has conducted research for this project for more than a year, creating focus groups and surveys to determine the specific emotions people most commonly express. The five winning emojis translated to cultures around the globe.
Tom Alison, engineering director of News Feed, stated, “We have been very intentional about really understanding what people are trying to communicate on Facebook right now and how can we make that easier.”
Users have been demanding a new alternative to “liking” a post for years, and Facebook has been resisting until now. Creating a “dislike” button has been rumored, but that option didn’t fall in the lines of maintaining a “positive” space within the social network.
“What these emoji do is give greater granularity in expressing what you are thinking and feeling about something that was posted on Facebook,” Says Gartner Research analyst Brian Blau.
Alison quotes, “We would consider it if it feels like that’s going to be something that fulfills a need. We’ve wanted to make sure the product is lightweight, simple and understandable. The more reactions we add, the more complicated it gets.”
Facebook says it will continue to refine and make adjustments to the feature based on feedback. “This is not the end. Whenever we launch something globally, we learn a lot and we improve the product. We listen to the feedback from everyone using it,” Alison said.
Facebook will benefit from the debut of these reactions emojis, giving the data-driven company an in-depth insight into how users react to certain content, which can ultimately change online marketing and advertising.
Here at Kraus Marketing, we stay up-to-date with Facebook’s new features and trends of other social media outlets. Are you looking to stay update with your business’ social media marketing? Contact Kraus Marketing today by visiting krausmarketing.com or by calling us at 973-998-5742.