Martin Beck says, “Facebook’s Like button is about to have company. One question: Will marketers give it the thumbs up?

It almost certainly won’t be a “dislike” button, but it will give people a shorthand way to express other-than-positive emotions. That could mean an emoji-based interface, as some Facebook patents seem to indicate. Or it could be something else. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is looking to give people a way to express empathy for unfortunate news and events while avoiding the creation of a situation where people are seen to be down-voting others’ posts. Building a new system that finds that balance is “surprisingly complicated,” Zuckerberg said, but Facebook is close to releasing a test version.

Marketers will be closely watching what Facebook comes up with. Currently, businesses have to dig to see negative feedback about their posting activity on Facebook Pages. Within Insights, at the post level they can see how many people hide a post, hide all posts, report spam, or the dreaded unlike a page because of a post. That information isn’t public, but feedback from Facebook’s upcoming button could broadcast consumer reactions more widely“.

Will Facebook’s “Empathy” Button Be Good News For Marketers?

Marketing Land

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