Facebook introducing 'Reactions' as upgraded feature to 'Like' button

Facebook is set to introduce 'Reactions' as an upgraded feature to its existing 'Like' button. The development comes less than a month after CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed some details about adding a 'dislike' button to the social network.

As technology site TechCrunch reports, Facebook's 'Reactions' offers a set of six emoji icons that come alongside the iconic 'Like' button. The icons are there to let you express love, laughter, happiness, sadness, shock and anger on Facebook posts. Moreover, the icons are quite identical to the ones that already exist on WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, except the like and love buttons.

The site reveals that Facebook is in plans to initially roll out 'Reactions' in two European markets - Spain and Ireland. The feature is expected to be available for worldwide users in the coming future to provide an acceptable alternative to the previously reported 'Dislike' button.

Facebook's director of product Adam Mosseri says only the two countries have been chosen initially as they "have largely national user bases without extensive international friend networks". The new buttons will be available across mobile and desktop versions of the social network and will appear on all posts in the News Feed, similar to the 'Like' button. Also, there are counts to show how many reactions a post has got on the social network.

"Typing on mobile is difficult," Mosseri told the site, adding: "[A]nd this is way easier than finding a sticker or emoji to respond to in the feed."

Apart from merely giving users more ways to express their emotions, the 'Reactions' feature on Facebook will be available right in Facebook's analytics dashboard. This would help page owners and publishers who spend plenty of their time on the social network to get more likes rather than simply publishing posts about what they are doing or where they are going, unlike millions of common Facebook users.

Mosseri confirms that Facebook will not get an option to turn off any of the reaction emoji icons as "that option could become confusing" especially when considering the user experience first.

Facebook already has a strong user base of over 1.44 billion monthly active users and is so far the leading social network. The arrival of the 'Reactions' feature suggests that the company is in plans to deliver an instant messaging-like experience to get more users in the future and to get even bigger.