Facebook Reactions only make up 3 percent of interactions there

If there’s an ambivalent emoji, that’s the face people would give Facebook Reactions.

Back in February, after months of testing, research and quibbling about the design, Facebook excitedly launched the suite of five emoji reactions, from happy to sad, that lets people express their emotions on a post. Turns out, people aren’t using them.

Marketing firm Quintly analyzed 130,000 posts and found that 97 percent of the interactions on them included the use of like button, writing a comment or a share. That means just a measly 3 percent of the time people used a reaction option. The firm concludes that Reactions “are not used very frequently by the average user at this point.”

Of the times Facebook Reactions are used, the “love” emoji is the most popular option.

Research also found that videos, which Facebook predominantly pushes to the top of people’s News Feeds, are 40 percent more likely to incite a reaction than an image.

“The findings reveal that video content is able to stir emotions more than images. The like count for the average image was in contrast higher; thus people seem to express their feelings quicker using the like function,” the firm concluded.

Facebook Reactions is still in its infancy, however, and it takes time for people’s habits to change. The new emojis panel is one of the biggest changes to the user experience in the social network’s history and shifting away from simply hitting the like is proving a tough sell. Plus, some people are still confused on how to use them:

That much-requested (and long-denied) dislike button would come in handy right about now.

https://staging.digiday.com/?p=175997

More in Media

YouTube is under fire again, this time over child protection

Adalytics Research asks, ‘Are YouTube advertisers inadvertently harvesting data from millions of children?’

Illustration of a puzzle that spells out the word 'media.'

Media Briefing: Publishers pump up per-subscriber revenue amid ad revenue declines

Publishers’ Q2 earnings reveal digital advertising is still in a tight spot, but digital subscriptions are picking up steam.

Lessons for AI from the ad-tech era: ‘We’re living in a memory-less world’

Experts reflect how the failures of social media and online advertising can help the industry improve the next era of innovation.