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Facebook timelines to fill with emoji

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins
Johannesburg, 09 Oct 2015
Facebook is testing different emotional reaction buttons in Spain and Ireland.
Facebook is testing different emotional reaction buttons in Spain and Ireland.

Facebook will not introduce a dislike button. Instead, it is considering adding six new reaction choices represented by emotional emoji.

The options will be the traditional 'like' represented by a thumbs up, 'love' represented by a heart, 'haha' by a laughing emoji, yay by a smiling emoji, wow by a surprised emoji, sad by a crying emoji, and angry by a red-faced emoji.

Arthur Goldstuck, World Wide Worx MD, thinks the reaction buttons are a fantastic idea.

"It is an elegant solution to an issue most Facebook users have: they don't want to 'like' something tragic or outrageous but do want to express solidarity without having to write a comment."

"For many years, people have asked us to add a 'dislike' button," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook profile yesterday.

"Not every moment is a good moment, and sometimes you just want a way to express empathy. These are important moments where you need the power to share more than ever, and a like might not be the best way to express yourself.

"Reactions gives you new ways to express love, awe, humour and sadness. It's not a dislike button, but it does give you the power to easily express sorrow and empathy -- in addition to delight and warmth. You'll be able to express these reactions by long pressing or hovering over the like button."

Goldstuck says a dislike button would lead to ambiguity, the same way the like button sometimes does. "Making it a reaction, not a dislike, introduces nuance and addresses the problem a lot people had with a dislike button.

"I think it is important to have all six emotions, as they dispel the ambiguity of the like button too."

Expected soon

The company said it would pilot the new features in Ireland and Spain on iOS, Android and desktops. The feedback from the pilot test will be used to improve the feature.

The company hopes "to roll it out to everyone soon", Facebook's chief product officer Chris Cox wrote in the post, which was "liked" by more than 7 500 people within two hours.

Facebook director of product Adam Mosseri told Tech Crunch those two markets were chosen because both have largely national user bases without extensive international friend networks, so they work better as closed test groups.

"Ireland is English-speaking, while Spain lets Facebook test out how well the wordless emoji play with non-English users," said Mosseri.

Brand challenges

Goldstuck says the change will be good for users as it will make for better communication.

However, brands and marketers will find the new change tricky to work with as they will now have seven metrics to work with and not only 'likes'.

"On top of having more metrics to work with, brands will have to decide what they are going for on Facebook and what reaction they are trying to illicit from their audience. Will they want to generate more 'yays', 'love' or 'outrage'?"

Goldstuck says brands will have to fine-tune their message, strategy and expectations. It could potentially change how brands use the social network.

Craig Wynn, senior content and community manager at digital agency Cerebra, says measuring the added metrics will be a challenge for brands, but: "At the same time, it means we will see clearer results in sentiment analysis to understand our audience reaction better."

Today we're launching a pilot test of Reactions - a more expressive Like button. As you can see, it's not a "dislike" button, though we hope it addresses the spirit of this request more broadly. We studied which comments and reactions are most commonly and universally expressed across Facebook, then worked to design an experience around them that was elegant and fun. Starting today Ireland and Spain can start loving, wow-ing, or expressing sympathy to posts on Facebook by hovering or long-pressing the Like button wherever they see it. We'll use the feedback from this to improve the feature and hope to roll it out to everyone soon.

Posted by Chris Cox on Thursday, October 8, 2015