Recently, Facebook added the long awaited 'reactions' in place of the like button. You may still like a post, but now you have additional options to express how you feel (or reacted!) to said post.

So, what does this mean for brands?

Defining Reactions

The  five new reactions are a result of about a year of research and testing by a team at Facebook dedicated to the new feature. “People come to Facebook to share all different things,” Sammi Krug, Facebook’s product manager for Reactions, said. “My college roommate got engaged. You’re so excited, and it didn’t feel right to just like that. I would have loved to love that.” Facebook Reactions hopes to allow people to more authentically react to posts, Krug said.

Kerry Flynn, IBT

What exactly are the new features that Facebook implemented? While no one actually got the 'Dislike' button that everyone rallied for, they did get a few empathy options.

Facebook reactions include the following emotions:

How Brands Use Them

For now, Facebook says it will be treating all Reactions, from “wows” to “sads” to “likes,” the same. “We will initially use any Reaction similar to a Like to infer that you want to see more of that type of content,” Sammi Krug, a Facebook product manager, said in a blog post yesterday. So if you “like” an ad or “sad” an ad, the News Feed algorithm will see it the same way, and so will advertisers when they’re looking at their overall engagement metrics.
Wired

With the knowledge that all reactions will be measured the same, advertisers do hope that this may open the door for more depth in measuring. 

It is also feasible to businesses to count the empathy responses themselves to see what content to prioritize and what to post more sparingly. Another angle would give insight for those that use social media as a branch of their customer service. 

If individuals use “sads,” for example, a brand could reach out to those people directly, much like customer service agents now reach out directly when people complain about their flights on Twitter.
Wired

Regardless of how brands use it, the new feature will ultimately provide more feedback towards your digital precense. 

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