Facebook recently rolled out additional reaction options beyond the “like” button. As with most changes to social media, this feature was met with skepticism, criticism, and some confusion on why it’s necessary. Of course, once the initial shock and curiosity wore off, we found people were mostly on the fence about whether they loved or hated the feature for their personal Facebook pages. As far as business pages, we love them! There’s one big reason why.
How many times have you seen a sad or frustrating Facebook status and noticed at least one misguided soul who “liked” the post? Of course, the person is probably not a fan of the fact that your car broke down or your grandma is in the hospital, but other than adding a comment (which can be stressful to attempt if you don’t know what to say), “liking” a Facebook post was the only way to show support. This means that lots of less-than-positive posts were passed over by friends and followers because people didn’t always have a comfortable way to engage with what you were saying.
The new Facebook reactions aim to solve that problem. Their developers wanted to give further options for communicating how a post makes you feel. Supposedly, Facebook will be seeing which options get used the most, and possibly removing some of the reactions later if they’re not popular. As it is, some people have questioned whether those six emotions are enough, while others think the additional icons will be distracting and clutter the view of your feed even further.
Still, there’s no doubt that the new reactions give diversity to how followers can respond. There isn’t much difference between a “like” and a “love,” but without showing agreement or disagreement you can opt for a “wow” reaction to convey your shock or surprise. And if a like a smiley emoji aren’t quite right, you can choose the “haha” reaction.
It’s the sad and angry reactions that are the farthest diversion from the traditional “like” button. These options give users the ability to interact with posts more completely. By promoting users to engage with more posts, Facebook is doing businesses a big favor. Many Facebook business pages rely solely on organic reach to gain followers and show up in the news feeds of their fans instead of paying for that reach. If your posts get more engagement, they are pushed to more people. For businesses, more reactions are a good thing!
Still, you probably shouldn’t aim to write content that makes people sad or angry. Generally, posts on social media that do the best are ones that are positive, interesting and enlightening. But you may post something like a staff member going on leave for a new baby or even a crazy avant garde line of fashion frames and find that followers use something other than the “like” button.
Social Media