Remington BeggAfter months and months of speculation, the announcement is official: Facebook is moving past the Like button. In just a few weeks, Facebook will roll out new Reactions. The feature adds brand new responses for those moments when the Like button would be inadequate or insensitive. For instance you will be able to be "sad" for someone's loss, or give a "wow" when there's something shocking. This new change is important for both users and marketers. Here’s everything you need to know about the biggest thing to happen to Facebook since the release of the timeline:
Users Can Respond More Appropriately
The situation has happened to all of us: someone posts on facebook about the loss of a loved one, a recent diagnoses, or a similarly upsetting event in their life. That’s certainly not something you legitimately like. But if you leave an uplifting comment, you’ll get notifications for everyone who comments after you. Sure, you can go into your notification settings and select to ignore it, but if you’re anything like me you chose not to respond to it at all rather than do that extra step. Facebook knows this is a problem and this is why the Reactions are coming about. New buttons include 'Love', 'Haha', 'Yay', 'Wow', 'Sad' and 'Angry.' The original “Like” will still be available as well.
There Won’t Be a Dislike Button
So while Facebook will be giving you a wider range of ways to react to your friend’s posts, one thing that is noticeably absent is a “Dislike” button. While a Dislike button has been asked for by users for years, Facebook has always maintained that the idea of a Dislike button goes against the friendly purpose of Facebook. These new Reactions seem to be a compromise: you can give a Friend something different than a Like, without being negative or mean.
Facebook Can Use the Data
These new responses give Facebook a ton of extra data that it can use to tailor the News Feed to users’ liking. This will be extremely important to those who use Facebook as an advertising and marketing avenue. Facebook hasn't come right out and said what it hopes to do with all of that new info, but other similar updates have been used to tailor content to be seen by the users most likely to engage with it.
When it comes to social media, Facebook is still the biggest fish in the sea. Any change Facebook makes is sure to mean a change for your social media strategy in order to keep up. Download our free eBook Mastering Social Media for Business for the best tips and tricks on keeping your social media accounts as beneficial as possible.
