Facebook has begun rolling out their new ‘Reactions’ system in Ireland and Spain as a test to see how it goes. These reactions will allow people to respond with more than just ‘Like’ to posts, pages, ads and more. While no ‘Dislike’ button will be available, there are six new options to choose from. Users will be able to respond with the following emoji: Love, Haha, Yay, Wow, Sad and Angry.
After the announcement that this was taking place, many people wondered how this would impact what people see in their News Feed. For example, if someone clicked ‘Angry’ about a post, would they be less likely to see those types of posts in their News Feed going forward? Until a recent post from Facebook’s Product Manager, Chris Tosswill it was unclear.
In the post, Tosswill wrote “Our goal is to show you the stories that matter most to you in News Feed. Initially, just as we do when someone likes a post, if someone uses a Reaction, we will infer they want to see more of that type of post. We will spend time learning from this initial rollout and iterate based on findings in the future.”
To put it simply, at least for now, any ‘Reaction’ to a post will be treated just like a “Like” currently is. How long this will last, however, we don’t know. Facebook will almost certainly use this data at some point in the future to adjust what shows up in people’s News Feed.
Tosswill also wrote, “We see this as an opportunity for businesses and publishers to better understand how people are responding to their content on Facebook. During this test, Page owners will be able to see Reactions to all of their posts on Page insights. Reactions will have the same impact on ad delivery as Likes do. We will spend time learning from this initial test and use that feedback to improve.”
There is no confirmation on how long this new feature will be limited to just Ireland and Spain or when it will be available in the US. Many people expect it will be sometime in the next couple months, but it is impossible to say for sure.
Whether Facebook uses this data to influence the News Feed or not, however, marketers will have access to the data and can use it to adjust their marketing efforts to get the most out of each post.
