Facebook places weight on reactions – those love, sad, angry, lol emoji’s – when determining what to put in your news feed.  It values them more than likes.  “Over the past year we’ve found that if people leave a Reaction on a post, it is an even stronger signal that they’d want to see that type of post than if they left a Like on the post,” a Facebook spokesperson.

That makes sense.  It easy to hit Like, but you must work a little bit more to call out the emoji’s.  So, two clicks instead of one demonstrates more intensity.  Like is a tepid reaction, but Love or Angry demonstrate passion. “If someone uses a Reaction, we will infer they want to see more of that type of post,” said Sammi Krug, Product Manager, Facebook.

For now, Facebook said it isn’t placing any more emphasis on one reaction versus another.  Being in love or angry with something won’t make a difference in how it’s judged.

In case you’re wondering, people LOVE things more than anything else when it comes to emoji’s.  About half of all reactions are people sharing the love.

Facebook Reactions was a response to user complaints about only have Like as a choice when it came to reacting to a post.  What if it’s heart-breaking news or a horrible news event?

How’s it going?

If you were hoping those emoji’s were going away anytime soon, I wouldn’t hold your breath. Facebook’s dive into using enhanced “like” buttons – Facebook Reactions – appears to be taking hold.

Quintly analyzed 105,000 Facebook pages in to find out if Reactions were being used.  In the first month after they debuted, roughly 6% of all likes were Facebook reactions.  In the second month after roll-out, however, there was a 22% increase in use.

For fan pages with less than 10 million fans, the average growth was 15%.  For the big guys – fan pages with more than 10 million pages – Facebook reaction use increased by a whopping 47%.

The Qunitly study shows that videos receive more Facebook Reactions than image posts by an average of 60%. “After watching the video, users seem to have a greater propensity for taking more time to express their feelings in a more detailed way by selecting a reaction and not by simply clicking the like-button,” said Julian Gottke of Quintly.