Both Facebook and Twitter unveil new reaction features

If you’ve been remiss in your Facebook or Twitter game lately, you might have missed some big changes. Both Facebook and Twitter announced new features to their respective platforms earlier this month as they attempt to cater to the needs of their user base.

Twitter’s GIF button

Need to react to a tweet you just saw with something far more dramatic than a simple text reply? If you’re like most people, you might just pull up your favorite GIF website in another tab to search for the perfect response. But no longer: Twitter is rolling out an all new GIF search that allows users to browse and choose GIF reactions without needing to navigate away from the site or app. The GIF library is powered by giphy.com, and GIFs are sorted into browsable categories.

The GIFs are coming! Get ready to search and send GIFs in Tweets and Direct Messages: https://t.co/uk75stt1zN pic.twitter.com/1dDD1B4CW2

— Twitter (@twitter) February 17, 2016

The GIF button is still limited to iOS and Android for now, but the change should roll out on twitter.com in upcoming weeks. You can learn more about this change on Twitter’s blog.

Facebook Reactions

Have you every “liked” someone’s really depressing status as a sign of solidarity only to feel bad later that you liked that fact that their poor dog Fluffy ran away? Well, now there’s a solution. Facebook unveiled it’s reaction buttons at the end of February, giving you more freedom to show your feelings towards a friend’s status, photo, or life event. You can now respond to posts on your timeline through six different reactions: Wow, Haha, Love, Angry, Sad, and the traditional Like.

Just hover your mouse over the Like button and all of the options will pop up, allowing you to respond accordingly with a reaction that suits how you feel about a post.

Adding the flexibility for users to show an emotional reaction to the content they see in their feed is a bold step that may impact how the platformed is used. Geoff Tehan, Production Design Director of Facebook, gives an in-depth explanation of the change and why it was necessary in the Medium post, “Reactions: Not everything in life is Likeable.”

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