It’s been almost a week since many people got access to Facebook’s new Reactions function (Facebook emojis) and at Dokoo we’ve rolled it out for many of the brands we manage. The results have been encouraging.
In case you haven’t used the new function yet, it allows Facebook users the opportunity to express how they feel about a Facebook Status update. The emojis you can display are as follows:
| IMAGE |
DESCRIPTION |
MEANING |
 |
Thumbs up symbol |
Like |
 |
Heart symbol |
Love |
 |
Laughing face symbol |
Haha |
 |
Smiling face symbol |
Yay |
 |
Surprised face symbol |
Wow |
 |
Sad face symbol |
Sad |
 |
Red face symbol |
Angry |
For ecommerce businesses, Facebook Reactions provide a really interesting function for looking at how your customers feel about your brand. For years advertisers had to assume that everyone who ‘liked’ their posts actually did like the content and wanted to see more. With these new developments advertisers can really see how people feel about their content.
Unfortunately at this stage there is no way for Facebook to weight how a user feels. Sammi Krug, a Facebook Product Manager said in his blog, “We will initially use any Reaction similar to a Like to infer that you want to see more of that type of content.” This basically means that if you are angry about seeing an ad in your timeline and use the angry symbol, you are going to see more of them as Facebook currently weights an angry emoji the same as a like.
This doesn’t really help advertisers at this moment as I for one want to see a breakdown in my content of who loved it and who was angry with it and be able to advertise to these users in different ways.
Sammi Krug continued, “Over time we hope to learn how the different Reactions should be weighted differently by News Feed to do a better job of showing everyone the stories they most want to see.” Now this is more like it; as a Facebook advertiser I want to be able to see who loved (used the heart symbol) my status update and how can I advertise only to these people. Conversely I want to also see who was angry with my content and ideally target them specifically with special offers to get them loving my brand again.
How to use Facebook Reactions in your marketing campaigns
For ecommerce companies reactions can therefore be a fairly accurate way of measuring how your users feel about your content. For example, if I run a ‘Pay Weekend Sale’ and I get 200 engagements on my Facebook ad and 175 of them are Love symbols, then as a brand I can assume that my client base like the sale and will hopefully buy.
On the other hand, if I post a picture of a product that has been discounted but my Facebook fans don’t really think it’s that good a deal, I could get 200 engagements and 150 could be angry faces. This will allow ecommerce companies and Facebook advertisers the opportunity to recalibrate their ad campaigns based on how users feel about their promotions.
At Dokoo we love helping businesses create campaigns that harness everything positive on Facebook and we love seeing other brands killing it on Facebook too, so here is some advice.
Find some visual content that reflects your brand and ask your users something like: ‘We are testing out Facebook Reactions (hold down like on mobile) — will you tell us what you think of this picture?’ (if you are including a product picture then have the link to buy this in the text).
Here are some examples:
- If you are jewellery retailer, upload a picture of a Mother’s Day gift.
- If you are a camping equipment store, upload a picture of a perfect summer’s day, with your tents and equipment on show.
- If you are a bike company, upload a picture of a bike rider on an expensive bike in a scenic location.
- If you are a wine retailer, upload a picture of a vintage red wine on a weekend night.
- If you are a clothes retailer, upload a picture of one of your latest products.
These ideas are all quite simple so I apologise for the brevity, but you get the gist of how your business could be using the new function. I would love to see as many companies as possible thinking outside the box with Facebook Reactions and trying to make them work.
If you are reading this and can’t think of a status update that would work for your business, then drop me a message, I am happy to give you an idea, free of charge.
Dokoo Digital is a digital marketing company that specialises in Facebook advertising. For more information check out www.dokoo.com
