What Facebook’s Reaction Buttons Could Mean For Brands
Yesterday, Facebook made an important change that might change the way users interact not only with each other, but with brands. Rather than just the standard “Like” option to react to posts, users can now choose from a range of reactions by hovering over the like button to reveal the buttons and accompanying emojis for Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry. The platform has long been a collection of posts we respond to in more ways than one, so Facebook’s reaction buttons are something that gives users far more choices in terms of how they express themselves and how they really feel about a post. Posts with many likes tend to sit higher on most people’s timelines, and the same will apply with these newer responses, tailoring a viewing experience based on algorithms the same way as before. But what could this possible mean for brands using Facebook, and other social media platforms as a way to connect with their audience?
The same can also be applied to other platforms, where there’s a handful of standard responses to posts that are still helpful in understand your reach, can be limited in terms of understanding what things resonated in particular ways for your fans or followers. Just like Twitter’s recent change from “Favourites” to “Likes”, it can offer clarity on what types of things your users and viewers are actually responding positively vs. the ones they’re effectively saving or bookmarking for later.
Eventually, platforms like Facebook may implement the counting of different types of interactions in analytics – and you’ll be able to see the amounts of response types within the larger number of interactions. Not only might this help brands figure out which types of posts make the most impact, but which ones are eliciting very specific responses from followers. This is extremely helpful when you consider planning future posts because you’ll be able to take stock of the types of content that’s worked the best in the past – allowing you to reuse previous posts and content in updated ways considering it may have been something that was “Loved” or “Wow’d” more than it was simply Liked.
As other platforms may make similar changes and rollouts that change the way users engage with content, brands should be prepared to take full advantage of the new wealth of information it would bring.