In October 2015, Facebook announced the release of the emoji reactions. Mark Zuckerberg explained that they were there to help you better understand how your friends felt about your post. But there was another reason that he didn’t mention. Facebook wanted to know why specific types of content go viral. It was already widely known that emotional reactions gave a lift to the content shared on social media. Therefore, Facebook reasoned that if platforms could measure that reaction, they could quickly understand why a particular piece of content spread so fast.
