Here’s why I think Facebook’s Reactions is so impactful.
Marketing is ultimately about the marketer having an emotional impact on the customer, or buyer. We humans purchase and make decisions based on emotions much more than on logic.
The ability for subscribers to now categorize a Facebook post by emotion let’s Facebook know more about what kind of content drives people emotionally. They can use that data to adjust their algorithms so that each of us is shown more content that we might respond to emotionally, thus keeping us on Facebook longer or causing us to visit more often.
But it has its limitation. We humans have many biases and are influenced constantly by our emotions. This rolls over into our decisions, so in many respects, we can’t completely trust what we label with a reaction because that can change based on other things going on in our lives and what we are feeling at the moment.
But this is a step towards neuromarketing, which has really jumped onto my radar in the last few months. It is now not only possible, but also looks scientifically sound to be able to analyze people’s facial reactions and let artificial intelligence truly measure how engaged a consumer is with what they are seeing. Rather than trusting what someone says, you can look deeper at how they truly feel about what they are seeing to get a much more accurate picture of their engagement.
But that jump – instead of us labeling content with our reactions – to letting Facebook analyze our facial reactions is certainly possible with today’s technology, but requires that Facebook see our facial reactions. That is pretty invasive, I agree, but I am sure Facebook and marketers will figure out how to do that.
