5 Ways for Marketers to React to Facebook's "Reactions"

It's been over a month since Facebook released its latest update, "reactions." Now we want to take a deeper dive into how marketers can better use this feature. Through proper analytics, the social media platform can now provide an even better understanding of your audience and help you interact with them more effectively. 

Hubspot's Blog and Social Media Examiner provide a great and more in-depth review of the tool and its implications, but for our purposes, let's review 5 ways marketers can use Facebook Reactions for their social media efforts. 

Features to React to with Facebook Reactions

1. Better understand authentic feelings

Rather than a mere "like," you get more insight into how your users really feel about your content. With a like, you could tell that readers had a reaction in general, but unless they took the time to comment, you didn't know what feeling was attached to the reaction.

You might have asked, "Was their like due to pure shock value or did they really appreciate the post?" "Are they laughing at a post or do they simply find it interesting?" Now you know more on why they reacted. 

Read more regarding this emotional aspect with Facebook's study on measuring feelings and feedback. 

2. Show up more often - Facebook Feed Algorithm 

Readers who did not interact with your content before when they didn't necessarily "like" it, might now choose to react with another emotion. For example, when a reader disliked your post in the past, they might not have taken the time to comment to say as much; now all they have to do is click a reaction to display their feelings. 

Although it'd be great to mostly get likes, hearts, and the like, in the very least the more reactions you get the better. Since Facebook's algorithm counts all interactions as equally notable, this will help you show up more at the top of users' feeds more often (Wired).  

3. Uncover true friends

You can better distinguish who "loves" your company and target them more specifically. If you see that a specific follower is frequently reacting with a heart to your content, they might be worth tracking or reaching out to individually. In this way, Facebook has gotten better at lead generation. 

4. Manage and react to negative feelings 

You can reach out to users who are unhappy with your posts. If someone reacted angrily to a post that wasn't necessarily meant to invoke anger, you may have a customer who has unmet needs. Consider reaching out to them specifically if you see this problem. 

5. Generate more relevant content

Since you now can know the why, moving forward use this to create content your followers want. Do they tend to react more to content that makes them "angry" or "happy"? Once you see that people tend to gravitate towards a certain emotion-inducing content, you understand what people come to you for and can play that to your advantage. 

You can even research how people are reacting to your competitors' posts so you don't always have to try out new posts yourself (Social Media Examiner). 

Beyond Facebook, you can use the information you gather from Facebook posts' analytics in your general content generation, tweets, pins and the like. By providing a way for an audience to be more transparent, Facebook is yet again, leading the charge for a better user of social media. Contact us if you need help launching a social media campaign or tracking your analytics.