Do businesses need to fear Facebook's 'dislike' button?

Facebook users have been requesting a ’dislike’ button for several years now, even creating pages and petitions in the hope of attracting Mark Zuckerberg’s attention. Now it seems their wishes have been granted and Facebook has announced that a form of the ‘dislike’ button will be coming soon. Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook has been working on the feature since the introduction of the ‘Like’ button 6 years ago.

Whatdoes this mean for businesses?

Social media is now an established way for customers to interact positively as well as negatively with companies, praising or complaining about their customer service or products. In fact, several companies have dedicated social media accounts just for customer feedback.

The introduction of a ‘dislike’ button might make for a quick way of providing feedback, but it would also have several negative impacts on a business’s Facebook page. For instance, the fear of being ‘disliked’ may cause businesses to shy away from posting content. More perniciously, trolling and spam ‘disliking’ could be used to hold companies to ransom.

However, Zuckerberg put paid to these concerns during his Q&A session this week.

Case Study: The Replace Base

An online retailer of mobile device repairs and replacement parts

"People aren't looking for the ability to down-vote people's posts, what they really want is to be able to express empathy.”

Zuckerberg clearly states that this new feature will not be named ‘dislike’, despite several news articles calling it such. It is heavily implied that the button will be there to express understanding rather than dislike, indicating that it will likely be called something lighter such as ‘Sorry’ or ‘Hugs’.

So, for owners of company pages it looks to be a case of 'nothing to see here, move on'. We'll keep a close eye on new announcements and provide another update when the exact format is clear.

If you need help making the most of your business's presence on Facebook or any other social media platforms, please get in touch.