Hooray for the new feature to the ubiquitous “Like” button!

Read an article about a natural disaster? You can now choose a “Sad” reaction, rather than “Like” to show empathy. Saw a video on animal abuse? You can now choose an “Angry” reaction, to express your emotions.

Facebook recently introduced new emoji reactions, and its users are already trying it out with enthusiasm. The new emoji reaction allows users to engage better online, which makes it a great time for brands to engage Facebook users.

Isn’t it wonderful that brands can now react swiftly to how their audience feels? You’ll know if your audience is happy with your promotion, new product launch, etc.

Enhance Engagement With Reactions

Reactions may be applied on a Facebook contest too. Instead of the usual “Like our Page & Tag 5 Friends”, you can now ask your fans to show you some “Love”, and encourage them to “Love” your contest promoting a new product.

If your service is down, the last thing you want is an influx of negative reviews on Facebook. Pin a post to the top of your Facebook page to inform your customers on the service disruption. With Facebook reactions, your customers may leave an “Angry” or “Sad” reaction, instead of writing a negative review.

Are Negative Reactions A Bad Thing?

What happens if your Facebook post is getting a lot of negative reactions? Before you start panicking, you’ll be happy to know your Newsfeed ranking will not be negatively affected with “Sad” or “Angry” reactions.

Getting many reactions (both negative and positive) shows that your post is getting a lot of engagement. The next step would be to look at your article and identify the possible cause of negative reactions.

If your organisation wants to create scam awareness, and just shared an article about the elderly being scammed by con artists, that is likely to get more “Angry” than “Likes” or “Haha”. In that case, having many “Angry” reactions is not a bad thing.

In another scenario, if your organisation just launched a new product, and you get a lot of “Sad” reaction, it is imperative you find out why. Users may have reacted that way because it is too expensive, or not available in certain location.

Are There New Targeting Options With The Reactions?

Your ads can be targeted to people who are likely to “Like” your page, but at this moment, it is still not possible for marketers to target people who will likely make specific reactions.

But who knows? Perhaps it’ll happen in the near future. After all, other than allowing users to express their emotions better, this new feature also allows Facebook to harvest data to show relevant content to the user.