Facebook acknowledges that we have emotions outside of “liking” something, and users all over the world will soon be able to express these emotions through a system called “Reactions” instead of a simple thumbs-up.
According to BBC News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg confirmed during a recent conference call that Reactions, which is already being tested in some parts of the world (including Spain and Ireland), will be going global “pretty soon.”
Launched in response to the demand for a “dislike” button on Facebook, Reactions initially included six additional emotions: love, haha, wow, yay, angry, and sad. However, the yay emoticon was dropped because it was not “universally understood,” a Facebook representative told Bloomberg Business on Wednesday.
Credit: Facebook
Bloomberg called the move “the most drastic change to Facebook in years,” adding that the like button was the social media website’s “most recognized symbol.” While Zuckerberg’s comments indicate that this change is coming soon, no exact rollout date has been announced.
Is Reactions a tool for users, or for advertisers?
The idea behind Reactions, Zuckerberg said, was to add “a little bit of complexity” to what had been a simple interaction process. “When you only have a like button, if you share a sad piece of content or something that makes you angry, people may not have the tool to react to it.”
Of course, as BBC News noted, there may be a period of adjustment for longtime social media users, as they attempt to determine if they love or merely like a picture of a friend’s beloved pet, or whether a particularly tragic story makes them sad or angry. Advertisers, however, are already going “wow” over the possibilities presented by the new emoji-based system, they said.
Simon Calvert, head of strategy at the marketing agency Lida, told the UK media outlet that the system would be very interesting, provided it can accurately reflect human emotions. “Emotions travel five times faster than rational thought,” he explained. “The ability to build better emotional connections with consumers is something that advertisers really prize.”
“From the consumer point of view they are now giving up their emotional data for advertisers to use and manipulate,” countered Nick Oliver of People.io, a company designed to help users take control of their social media data and better understand how valuable it is to advertisers. “People open themselves up on social media and the data is used in ways they never expect.”
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Image credit: Facebook
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