Updated February 24, 2016
Everyone has experienced a time on Facebook when hitting the "Like" button didn't feel quite right. When your friend posts that "Fido lived a good life and he's now in a better place" you don't want to "Like" the post because then if feels like you're "Liking" that Fido has passed. However, you don't want to just comment "Sorry for your loss" like every other person. What's a Facebook user to do?
Announcing Facebook "Reactions," available to users everywhere who want to empathize. Check out how the new "Like" button works in this article excerpt from TechCrunch.
Facebook Enhances Everyone's Like With Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry Buttons
Posted by Josh Constine
Humanity has been boiled down to six emotions. Today after tests in a few countries, Facebook is rolling out its augmented Like button “Reactions” to all users.
This article has been boiled down to six emotions too.
Like – Facebook designed Reactions so Liking is still as easy ever. You’ll see the Like button on every post, but now if you tap and hold on it (or hover on desktop), the Like will expand to reveal the other emotions: Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry. Drag your finger across and you can select one.
Now instead of a Like count, posts will display the total Reaction count, and show the icons of the most popular Reactions. This way, Facebook doesn’t have to clutter the feed with individual counts of each emotion. If you do want to know the breakdown, you can tap the Reaction count and see who felt what.
This design is smart because if you don’t want to use Reactions, you don’t have to, and there aren’t six buttons on every post.
Love – Reactions were created after Mark Zuckerberg told his team “I want to really make it easy for people to give other types of feedback than the Like button in News Feed” according to News Feed engineering manager Tom Alison. Sometimes when a friend shares a post about a tragedy or something that annoys them, it doesn’t feel right to Like it, and commenting can be awkward, but you still want to express empathy.
For example, if something sad happens to a friend, Liking isn’t right, but adding a generic “sorry” comment can feel cold. By hitting the animated Sad button, you can express your condolences and solidarity. With any luck, this will encourage people to be more vulnerable on Facebook. Instead of the constant Success Theater where people only share the highlights of their lives, they might be more real with their friends.
[Continue reading original article: Facebook Enhances Everyone's Like With Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry Buttons]
Maybe the new Reactions will help negate political rants or nasty comment threads because users can simply select that they're angry. One can only hope! In a world of social media emojis are becoming increasingly important for context. Facebook gets this digital use of emotions and is allowing its users to react accordingly.
Posted October 14, 2015
In September, Facebook announced it was working on a ‘dislike’ button to be used in the social platform. There was quite a bit of controversy that arose from that announcement and it seems as if Facebook took that into consideration. Instead of a thumbs-down button showing that a user dislikes something, the button will display a series of emoji to express how you truly feel.
Facebook has begun to roll out what it calls “Reactions,” a new set of six emoji’s that display next to the original thumbs up to let users respond with love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness, and anger.
Currently, the new feature is in test mode in two markets only, Spain and Ireland. Once a general consensus is received, Facebook will decide what it should tweak and if it should roll it out to the entire world.
For more insight on this button, check out this article written by Tech Crunch.
With Reactions, Facebook Supercharges The Like Button with 6 Empathetic Emoji
Posted by Ingrid Lunden
The new set of reactions will appear across both mobile and desktop versions of the app and on all posts in the News Feed — be they from friends, Pages/accounts you follow, or advertisers.
At this point, there are no plans to put them into Messenger or other Facebook-owned products, Mosseri tells me. (Although you could see how this would make a lot of sense in a product like Instagram, too, for example.)
The reactions will work simply enough. On mobile, the emoji will come up when you touch the like button on your screen; on desktop they will come up as you hover the mouse over the like or click on it.
Facebook’s move to add in the emoji come from a few different challenges and trends that the social network was noticing.
First, there was the basic demand that users were making of Facebook to provide more than just a simple like. Sometimes a thumbs-up simply isn’t the quick response that you are looking for, if the news in question is shocking in a bad way for example.
Then there is the issue of people interacting on mobile devices.
Mobile is increasingly the default platform for more and more Facebook users, so the fact that some people don’t like to spend time tapping out responses on mobile handsets is an important thing to address for a social network that very much relies on user engagement to work as a business.
Mosseri says that some people were already using Stickers as a wordless way of registering their responses, but this will give them a quicker way to do this.
[Continue Reading Original Article: With Reactions, Facebook Supercharges The Like Button with 6 Empathetic Emoji]
So what do you think about Facebook’s Reactions button? Good idea? Don’t really care? My only questions and concerns are how this button will make measuring certain social analytics data a bit more complicated. Social goals may change a bit, hoping for more hearts and yays than angry faces. Sounds a little funny but if you’ve got a business Facebook page, you’re going to have to learn to roll with the punches and new technology.
If you don’t want to have to worry about emoji buttons on your Facebook page, that’s fine too. We can do it all for you!
Since 2002, Half a Bubble Out has been dedicated to providing marketing, advertising, and small business consulting that meet the needs of our clients. We specialize in powerfully telling stories through inbound marketing to grow your business filled with more passion and provision. Based in Chico California, we serve clients throughout Northern California and across the country to New York.
