By now, you’ve surely seen them: five new emojis that have joined the like button on Facebook. Facebook users can still “like” a post, but now they can also express a variety of other feels, including haha, wow, love, sad and angry.
This Facebook “reactions” feature is causing major buzz among social media marketers. For users, the change is liberating: no more awkward moments deciding whether you’re supposed to “Like” that post where your friend’s dog died. It’s an even better deal for marketers, providing huge opportunities to analyze and tweak their social media strategy. Let’s take a closer look at how marketers can make the most out of this new Facebook feature.
An Emotional Situation
One interesting thing about Facebook reactions is that each is treated as a “like” when it comes to determining a post’s placement in a user’s news feed. Why would Facebook treat a “sad” or “angry” reaction the same as a “like”? According to a New York Times study, content that provoked an angry reaction among readers was 34% more likely to hit the publication’s “most shared” page. The same study showed that anxiety-inducing content was over 20% more likely to enter “most shared” territory. Basically, people want to see content that triggers a strong emotion.
What Can We Learn?
Although Facebook reactions are fun for users, for brands they’re a gold mine of insight into consumer emotion. It’s now much easier to know what type of content readers love and which items strike the wrong note. Brands may even end up increasing their engagement with customers: those who didn’t want to “like” your content and couldn’t be bothered leaving a comment now have an easier way to show how they feel.
Reacting to Reactions
So, as a business marketer, how can you take advantage of this new feature?
- See which reactions perform best
Go to Facebook Insights and sort your posts by either shares or clicks – whichever metric is more important to you. See which posts performed the best and then look at the reactions that each one evoked. Which posts did better: the ones that get a lot of “love” or the ones that provoke more “haha”? This information can help guide the tone and content of your posts going forward.
- Who “loves” ya?
Take note of the fans that click “love” on many of your posts: these people may be potential brand advocates or ambassadors. Once you’ve identified a few, start engaging with them regularly on Facebook and start building that relationship.
- Weave reactions into your campaigns
Chevrolet was quick to incorporate Facebook reactions into their marketing campaigns, launching an ad that encouraged consumers to show their “love.” It may have worked for them, but a note of caution: use it in moderation in your own advertising. It’s best to allow reactions to occur as a natural, organic response to your content.
- Check out your competition
Facebook reactions are public information, making it dead easy for users to see how people have reacted to certain posts. For marketers and business owners, this is great intel for checking out the competition. It can also help with tone adjustment: if you’re thinking of using more humor or adopting an edgier tone in your posts, do your research and see how it worked for your competitors first.
Less Guesswork & Better Insight
In the end, marketing is all about eliciting an emotional response from your audience. Facebook is now giving users a way to express a wider range of those emotions, helping marketers by removing some of the guesswork in advertising. In the past, you had to hope that your content was getting a particular reaction from your audience. But now, you’ll actually know.