In February 2016, Facebook added emoji “Reactions” to the News Feed after more than a year of building an alternative to the trademark “Like” button. And recently, Facebook has confirmed that using emoji “Reactions” actually influences the way your News Feed appears. In fact, Facebook weighs the emoji “Reactions” more than “Likes” to determine which content should appear towards the top of your News Feed.
“Over the past year we've found that if people leave a Reaction on a post, it is an even stronger signal that they'd want to see that type of post than if they left a Like on the post,” said Facebook in a statement via Mashable. “So we are updating News Feed to weigh reactions a little more than Likes when taking into account how relevant the story is to each person.”
Facebook’s emoji “Reactions” appear when you push down the “Like” button on the mobile app or you hover the mouse over the icon on the desktop version. The six animated emoji “Reactions” that Facebook added are Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry.
However, Facebook said that all of the “Reactions” are weighted the same as of right now. So using a Love Reaction on certain types of content will not make it appear more than a Haha. Interestingly Facebook said that the “Love” button has been the most popular of all the Reactions thus far, making up over half the Reactions used on the social network.
In terms of advertising, Facebook “Reactions” are being treated the same as Likes for ad delivery. So “Loves” do not carry any extra weight than “Likes” for ad auctions on the social network. But the popularity of “Reactions” could be a potentially lucrative opportunity if Facebook builds a feature that allows advertisers to target users based on their emotional responses. This could help drive brand engagement and enable advertisers to learn what types of content their followers would enjoy. That is why it seems very likely that Facebook is working on developing this type of advertising feature.
Around the time that emoji “Reactions” launched, Facebook acknowledged that users were often put in the position to “like” a post about a death without distinction from how they would “like” an engagement photo. “We kept hearing from people that they didn't have a way to express empathy,” said Facebook product manager Sammi Krug in an interview with Forbes’ Kathleen Chaykowski last year. According to AdWeek, Facebook “Reactions” hit a total of 300 billion times used at the one year mark of the feature launch. Christmas Day 2016 was the day that the most Reactions were used on Facebook. And the 10 countries where Reactions are used the most are:
1.) Mexico
2.) Chile
3.) Suriname
4.) Greece
5.) Paraguay
6.) Costa Rica
7.) Belize
8.) U.S.
9.) Brazil
10.) Uruguay
What are your thoughts about Facebook's News Feed being affected by the emoji "Reactions?" Please leave a comment!
