What Happened
On Thursday Facebook unveiled “Reactions,” a set of emojis designed to convey empathic feelings other than a simple “like.” The six new reaction emojis are laughter, love, cheer, shock, sadness, and anger, and they will be treated the same as “Likes.” They will also influence Facebook’s news feed algorithms. The company will test these new reaction buttons in Ireland and Spain before rolling them out globally.
What Brands Need To Do
For brands, this expansion of the Like button presents a new way to accurately gauge customers’ reactions and more accurately measure their sentiment. Previously, brands would usually turn to sentiment analysis services with semantic analysis of comments provided by third-party analytic firms to get an idea of how people are reacting to their content on social media. Now, brands will be able to see reaction counts within Facebook’s page insights tool, something that any brand with a Facebook presence should definitely look into.
Source: AdAge
Header image courtesy of Facebook