Facebook announces plans to launch DISLIKE button for empathy

It was only a matter of time before Facebook took the ‘LIKE’ concept 90 degrees, we all knew it was coming – yet, last week when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the button would be a way for people to express empathy and was “very close” to having it ready for user testing – the world-wide-web wen’t into overdrive!

However he went on to say he did not want it to be a mechanism with which people could “down vote” others’ posts. Instead, Mark hopes it will be used in times when clicking “like” on “sad” posts felt insensitive.

Facebook’s DISLIKE button has been a topic of discussion online for many years; since having first launched the ‘like’ button in 2009, saying it was an “easy way to tell your friends that you like what they’re sharing on Facebook with one easy click”.

‘Likes’ are a vital part of Facebook’s marketing strategy, as they help inform Facebook’s algorithms and in turn, that information decides what goes into each users’ news feeds: so if a person ‘likes’ a post, they are more likely to see similar posts, whether it is from the same friend or on a similar subject.

What a person ‘likes’ can also help inform marketers on Facebook, if a user, for example, ‘likes’ a lot of fashion pages, they may be more likely to see advertising about health, beauty and fashion – and with that in mind, from a marketing perspective, ‘dislikes’ could be used in a similar way, to steer who marketers target on the site!

We look forward to seeing how Facebook implements this new strategy, but this latest announcement tells us we won’t have to wait too long….

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