Facebook is not the branded content platform it once was, but a new study suggests that marketers will still benefit from investing in the platform as new reaction formats have significantly boosted engagement levels.
Quintly analysed millions of posts from more than 200,000 brands between January and April this year to find out whether the expanded reaction system, which built on the now ubiquitous but limited “like” format, is driving better results for posts published on the platform.
The answer is a resounding yes. The report found that the new reaction repertoire has resonated well with users as they now account for 12.8% of all interactions. More importantly, a staggering 70.2% of engagement is solely linked to these reactions, which puts it way ahead of shares (18.2%) and comments (11.6%).
The number of reactions has soared by 433% during the last two years. The data suggests that marketers will now find less value in traditional likes and will get more meaningful feedback by focusing on how people use reactions to express how they feel about the content that they consume.
Likes still account for 61.2% of all interactions, but this is down from the 76.4% figure from the first study back in 2016. Of the reactions used, “love” and “haha” are the most popular, accounting for around a third of all reactions.
Quintly noted that users have a growing affinity with reactions, and brands need to examine how consumers use them to gain a better understanding of target audiences.
