How Facebook Reactions Will Impact the PR, Marketing and Communications Industries

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By: Bulldog Reporter

While “liking” something on Facebook is nothing new, users will now be able to express themselves on posts much more clearly than ever before and for PR, marketing and communications professionals, there will be no doubt as to how an audience feels about the content being shared. With the addition of five animated emojis, PR pros will now be able to measure audience sentiment for published messaging which could help better target segments of a particular audience based on their reactions to posts. These new emojis are called “Facebook Reactions,” with each emotive icon (or emoticon) named for the reaction it’s meant to convey. These new Facebook Reactions are now available to Facebook’s 1.55 billion active users.

For PR and communications professionals, these emoticons emphasize the importance of visuals used for communications in the digital realm. According to Vyvyan Evans, a professor of linguistics at Bangor University, who is quoted in a recent Wired article, “Nearly 70 percent of meaning derived from spoken language comes from nonverbal cues like body language and facial expression…. The stratospheric rise of emoji is essentially fulfilling the function of nonverbal cues in spoken communication.”

According to Gizmodo, Facebook users aren’t limited to just these emoticons, either. Why stick to these generic emoticons when you can personalize your experience even further and use, say, Donald Trump emoticons? Well, let’s not get carried away here. But, to be fair, this is an important opportunity to recognize in social media marketing because it illustrates the continued shift of online audiences’ preferences to visual forms of communications.

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