In September, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, indicated that the social network's users would finally be getting a long-asked-for "dislike" button, or at least ways to show empathy. Mr. Zuckerberg only hinted it would be more nuanced than Reddit's simple "down-vote" button. It turns out Facebook is exploring many more emotional responses.
Last week, Facebook announced it was testing a "Reactions" feature tied to emojis, which are special symbols and graphics used while sending text messages or tweets on smartphones. With the feature, a user clicking on the "like" button would have the option to react to a post with seven different emojis: angry, sad, wow, yay, haha, love, and the traditional like.
"As you can see, it's not a 'dislike' button, though we hope it addresses the spirit of this request more broadly," wrote Chris Cox, the social site's chief product officer, on his Facebook page in revealing the developments. "We studied which comments and reactions are most commonly and universally expressed across Facebook, then worked to design an experience around them that was elegant and fun."
Source: Facebook
The feature went live last Thursday in Ireland and Spain with learnings guiding larger rollouts. No timeframe was set for a larger rollout.
"We see this as an opportunity for businesses and publishers to better understand how people are responding to their content on Facebook," said Chris Tosswill, Facebook's product manager, on Facebook's blog.
With mobile taking over, using emojis is easier than typing out responses on smartphones. But the bigger promise with Reaction is providing better insights for consumer data collection as well as improved targeting for marketers.
"They let Facebook quantify your feelings with even more granularity, which could in turn help Facebook serve up ads that are even more well-suited to you," wrote Davey Alba for Wired.
"It's a win for Facebook as a data-driven company," Andrea Forte, assistant professor of social computing at Drexel University, told The Wall Street Journal.
Some see a risk that engagement will decline with users overwhelmed by too many choices.
"Facebook Reactions' heart is in the right place," wrote Pete Pachal for Mashable. "The feature is trying to change a bland, binary choice into a rich experience that better reflects our feelings, but the emotion it'll probably end up inspiring most is ambivalence."
- Chris Cox's Facebook Page
- News Feed FYI: How the Reactions Test Will Impact Ranking - Facebook Blog
- Facebook's Dislike Button Is Here-In the Form of Emoji Reactions - The Wall Street Journal (sub. required)
- Facebook Tests Emoji Reactions to Fix Its 'Dislike' Problem - Wired
- With Reactions, Facebook Supercharges The Like Button With 6 Empathetic Emoji - TechCrunch
- Facebook Reactions are here, and they're worse than we feared - Mashable