All the rave yesterday was about Facebooks global launch of its "reactions." Users have been begging Facebook for a dislike button for as far back as I can remember. Some Facebook users were mad and others were thrilled about this new addition to the site. The buttons that have been added are "love", "wow", "sad", "angry" and "haha" emoticons. Although there is no specific dislike button, people are still able to express more emotion about a post then they were prior to yesterday.

How do you use the new reactions?

Facebook did not make the emoticons easy for users to find. The way you use them is to simply hover your mouse over the like button or hold down the like button for a brief few seconds. When you do this, your other reaction emoticons will appear.

What are people saying?

As crazy as it sounds, this is all people were talking about yesterday. This was a huge deal for Facebook and all of its users. Many Facebook users are excited for this new feature that they are able to use. People have been dying to have a love button and a laughing button, so for them this is great. Others, however, are bias and mad because all they ever wanted was a simple dislike button. It’s a tough life, am I right?

So, does this mean anything for marketers?

I don’t believe that Facebook’s new reaction options will have too much of an effect on the marketing world. However, I think it will definitely affect things some. Marketers will now have a more narrowed perspective of how people feel about what they are marketing on Facebook. Before, you could like a post or not like it and that was it. To a marketer, it is hard to determine if someone didn’t like it or just felt that "like" didn’t best express their emotion. Obviously, there has always been the option to comment and express one's opinion, whatever it might be, but these reactions can aid as a quick summary of a person's feelings.

This may benefit or hurt marketers. For example, if a company is marketing something that everyone puts an angry face on, well that is just embarrassing for them. On the other hand, if they market something that gets tons of "Wows" then they will find that people are excited about the content that they are displaying.

It could go either way for marketers, so it will be fun to see what role these reactions play in the marketing world if any.