Whether you're an active user on Facebook or not, you most certainly would be familiar with the famous Facebook 'like’. The simple but so effective ‘thumbs up’, it’s symbolic to Facebook and it seems you can’t go anywhere online anymore without seeing ‘Like us on Facebook’. It’s a feature that has had everyone talking for years, and Facebook have recently released a new feature that will make even the non-likers ‘like’...
You may be thinking this is just an update to make Facebook look even more 'cool and trendy', but if you look deeper into this you will see there are more reasons for the update than you may think.
In this article I will be discussing what the new features are, and what this means for Facebook.
Let’s get started by talking about what the new 'like' update is, and how it can be used…
What Is The New Update?
Over the last few years Facebook has become famous for its simple but effective 'Like button'. Whether you use Facebook for business or personal use, the end game for a status or page has always been to get the most likes possible. Many people monitor how 'popular' their Facebook account or business page is by the amount of 'likes' they receive for a photo, post or page. You may be thinking now that surely 'the more likes means the more friends or fans you have right?' Wrong! Just because a photo, post or page has received a fair few likes, it doesn't reflect on how many real friends or fans you have. If you have a Facebook business page here is a great article on how to make it more effective - 6 Tips For A More Effective Facebook Business Page.
The new update offers users to show their emotion to a post by reacting in 6 different ways. Instead of the basic 'like', Facebook now lets users pick real emotion towards a post.
The 6 options that Facebook now lets a user pick are: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry. As well as sticking with the basic 'like' Facebook has decided to move more towards real emotion. There was a time when a like was perfect for a post, but now times have changed and so do people’s emotions, the new updates are perfect.
There used to be a time when a simple ‘like’ did the job on a post or picture. Eg ‘Finally got that house’, or ‘So proud to welcome this little one into the world’. These are perfect examples of a straight forward like, but now it’s 2016 and people are sharing much more personal and thought provoking posts, and this is the driving force behind the Facebook ‘like’ update.
Sometimes a ‘like’ isn’t the real emotion you feel towards a post or picture. There can be times when you feel extremely sad or shocked by a post and you ‘like’ it to show support, but sometimes you can feel misinterpreted for liking it. For example let’s take the tragic and awful events that happened in Paris a couple of months ago. There were so many people posting about this horrific evening and all a Facebook user could do was ‘like’ the post. This lead to people feeling ashamed as they were ‘liking’ posts about such an awful event but they were in fact liking it as they also felt so disgusted and saddened by what had happened. Facebook had limited real emotion to just a ‘like’ and this was stopping people from expressing how they really felt about these types of posts. This is why Facebook have introduced the new ‘like’ update, instead of just a ‘like’ people can now respond to a post with real core emotion.
Is There A Deeper Reason For The Update?
Many people who use Facebook believe that this update is purely to show that Facebook is still 'cool and trendy' and that they just want to show off what they can do. But I believe there is a deeper meaning for this update. You need to ask yourself the below...
Are Facebook in the biggest Social Media battle they've ever been in?
Yes! The daily usage figures for Facebook are frighteningly high and the number of new users is growing immensely per day, but the Social Media battle is more open than it has ever been before!
For example, let’s go back a couple of years. Facebook were the big dogs and Twitter was slowly becoming more popular, Instagram was barely known, Google+ had only just come onto the scene and Pinterest and YouTube were just starting to get used by the 'non-professionals’.
Now let’s skip forward to the present day, Facebook is still a huge player in the game, but Twitter is more popular than ever, with celebrities having millions and millions of followers. Instagram is fast becoming one of the most used Social Media Platforms, with a reported figure of over 70 million photos being shared per day! Google+ has picked up a lot of pace and continues to be a main profile to have for businesses. Pinterest is one of the biggest growers in the Social Media battle and, with over 100 million active users, it’s fast becoming one to watch. And finally YouTube, this has become the biggest video sharing platform in the world and it’s reported that over 450 hours of video is uploaded per minute! This is an absolutely phenomenal statistic. All of the above show just how much other Social Media sites have grown over the last couple of years.
Let’s get back to the subject of the new Facebook like update.
I believe that Facebook had no choice but to introduce the new feature so it can keep ahead of the other Social Media platforms. Twitter recently changed it ‘favourite’ to ‘love' and again, this is a key indication that every Social Media site is stepping thier game up, to stay ahead in the newest and biggest Social Media battle of all time!
Social Media competition is only going to get harder as new platforms pop up and existing ones make new and improved updates. Whether or not you use all the Social Media platforms at the moment, you need to keep an open mind and give every one a try. It could be the case that one or two are not best for you, but the more you test and try, the more you can get for your business.
If you have any thoughts about the new update or on any other Social Media platform, feel free to comment below.
