Written by Erik Leist, Internet Marketing Evangelist for the Internet Marketing Association.

The simple ‘Like’ button is no more. Facebook hinted a few months back that they were considering expanding reactions to posts from just like, comment and share to some new choices.

For a long time users have asked for a ‘dislike’ button. Facebook, not wanting to focus on negativity has finally responded with ‘Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry’.

How will this affect businesses, should brands be concerned? Absolutely not. It will help you gain insight into customer sentiment without a user posting a comment, firstly. Secondly it will encourage more users to interact in meaningful ways with your brand – more opportunities likely means more engagements. Brands should expect to see a spike in engagement in the short term as users experiment with this new feature.

Our new favorite reaction is definitely ‘love’. Instead of a sort of ‘meh’ like, users who are excited about your posts can give much stronger affirmation. Angry may seem like the most troubling reaction for your brand, but we feel ‘haha’ could see the most abuse. If you post something serious and customers are laughing at you, you’re going to want to find out why.