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Facebook has finally moved past “like.”
On Wednesday, the social networking giant gave all users the option of choosing from a collection of emojis called “Reactions” to respond to posts with more nuanced emotions than “like.” The new symbols, which augment rather than replace the iconic “like” button, represent expressions of love, laughter, surprise, sadness and anger.
Facebook, which has been testing the new icons in Europe for a few months, said its members will appreciate a wider range of official icons than just the thumbs-up to express their feelings about photos of your dinner, the latest political meme or news that another classic rocker has died.
“We’ve been listening to people and know that there should be more ways to easily and quickly express how something you see in News Feed makes you feel,” Sammi Krug, Facebook product manager, said in a Facebook post Wednesday.
Facebook, which already lures a fifth of the world’s population each month, hopes the emojis will help rope in even more users.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially teased Reactions during an event at the company’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters in September. Acknowledging that “not every moment is a good moment,” Zuckerberg said that Facebook would introduce a feature to reflect people’s wishes for more ways to express themselves.
The emojis won’t just encourage more communication. Your increased engagement on the site will also allow Facebook to collect more data about your habits and opinions, helping to create a digital profile that makes it easier to send you more targeted advertisements, the company’s chief source of revenue.
To use one of Facebook’s new emotional reactions, hold down the “like” button on your mobile device or hover over the “like” button on the Web to see the range of new options, then tap your desired reaction image.
Now we’ll see how much people “like” the emojis.
