Facebook reactions and more: Three new social features we love

In the ever-evolving world of social media, blink and you’ll miss an update. Fortunately, we’ve done the hard work for you and rounded up three new features that have appeared in the past few weeks. Here’s a quick summary of what’s changed and why you need to know about it…

1. Facebook reactions are being rolled out globally

After a year of careful research, Facebook has finally rolled out its extension of the like button. There’s still no ‘dislike’ option, but users can now choose from six reactions to posts that appear on their news feeds.

Source: Facebook

This is a huge opportunity for brands to see how people are responding to their content on Facebook. Whether it’s love, laughter or even anger, page owners will be able to see all the reactions from their audience in page insights, giving them a better idea of how their brand’s content is being received.

If you’re wondering how the new reactions will affect what appears on news feeds, the answer is that it won’t – yet. Facebook have said on their blog:

“In the beginning, it won’t matter if someone likes, “wows” or “sads” a post — we will initially use any Reaction similar to a Like to infer that you want to see more of that type of content. 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.”

So the real excitement is yet to come. As soon as different reactions start to affect reach, brands will need to think about how their content is received and how that will impact their visibility. That might mean planning content that provokes specific reactions from its audience, or measuring content performance according to the more extreme reactions it receives. Watch this space…

2. Twitter has announced two new customer service tools

Millions of customer service interactions happen every month on Twitter, so it makes sense that Twitter has announced new features to make these moments easier for both brands and consumers.

Customer queries often start as tweets to businesses, but these interactions soon need to be made private once personal information is shared. Businesses can now send a call to action to a customer they’re tweeting, enabling them to respond via a private direct message in just one click – making it nice and easy for both parties to follow up on complaints or queries.

Source: Twitter

Twitter has also introduced a customer feedback tool that allows businesses to measure their service experience in a way that open-ended feedback can’t. Businesses can use two industry standard question formats to gather information from their customers about their experience – Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT).

3. Instagram has introduced video counts

Until now, the only way of tracking video performance on Instagram has been through likes – but you’ll now be able to see how many times a video has been viewed, just like on Facebook. The view count will be displayed under the video, and tapping on the views will reveal the number of likes.

Source: Instagram

Since adding support for video, Instagram has become one of the most popular video-sharing services in the world – and many brands have taken advantage of this. View counts will make it much easier for brands to track the success of their videos as well as those of competitors, making this a welcome update. But before the metrics go to your head, it’s worth noting that just like on Facebook, a view is counted after just three seconds.

If you want more information, or need help with your digital marketing get in touch.