Facebook Adds a “Reaction” Button

Facebook’s “like” button has always been insufficient, not just for marketers but for all of us.

How are you supposed to react to a post about your favorite team losing the Super Bowl, when your friend says that her mom is sick in the hospital, or a news item about a school shooting or a terrorist attack?

Nobody likes this stuff, but some of us click the “like” button anyway because we want to draw attention to the content and there’s nothing else to click.

So Facebook has decided to roll out a range of emotional reaction buttons. “Like” is still an option, but so is “love,” along with “sad,” “angry” and “wow.”

You might not see these buttons just yet because Facebook is rolling them out exclusively in Spain and Ireland before going global, but you’ll have access to them soon enough.

And so will your customers.

Your customers have always been able to express their displeasure on Facebook, but they’ve had to stop what they’re doing and actually write something. Now they can just click a button.

And the number of angry reactions will be tallied right there alongside the likes.

Feeling nervous yet?

Don’t. It’s all good.

You’re not going to anger your customers more than you already are just because they can register their disgruntlement by clicking a button. The difference is that you’re more likely to know they’re disgruntled, which means you’ll be more able to do something about it. You can’t fix problems you don’t know about, and you can’t placate angry customers if they silently stalk off in a huff.

Think of Facebook’s new range of reactions like a comment card. You do want to know what your customers really think, don’t you?

Just be careful not to make customer reactions your overriding concern.

“At the end of the day,” says Facebook product manager Richard Sim, “for a business we want you to post things that you know are going to drive business value for you, and optimizing for loves really isn’t the right business value for you.”