After a long standing debate on whether a dislike button should be added to Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg finally said that the popular social media platform is all set to test a ‘dislike’ button for Facebook, which will aid the users in showing mild disapproval or to show empathy or solidarity in certain cases.

General reactions regarding the dislike button:

When asked from a SMO Services Company on whether adding such a button will do more harm than good, the reply given by them clearly states that the use of the dislike button purely depends on the user and it is the duty of Facebook to clarify when and where to use the dislike button in order to reduce misuse.

However, a provider of services of Social Media Optimization states that the button is welcome change and it will help the people in showing empathy in case a friend loses someone in the family or is struck by unfortunate incidents. They described that people needed such a tool as they want to express their solidarity to the persons in such cases and by introducing the dislike button, Facebook is giving them the power to do just that.

General reactions of the people on twitter and other social media suggests a mixed emotions amongst the users of Facebook. Some feel that the move is much awaited and should have been brought a while ago, while there are others who feel that the tool might be misused and lead more to trolls than to actual usage of the button.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ-jhZuu8qs]

Pros and Cons of the Dislike Button:

Whenever there is a new feature introduced, there are always pros and cons to it. Let us look at the probable pros and cons of having a dislike button on Facebook.

Pros:

• Having a dislike button will allow the users to show their displeasure on some content shared by others over the social media.
• Having a dislike button allows the users to show empathy and solidarity to certain events. The events could range from natural calamities, some heinous crimes or the personal loss of a person.
• A dislike button will allow the marketers to judge whether the content being promoted by them is working or not. People are generally expected to dislike the posts that annoy them and with this, the marketing firms will know which type of ads to show and which ones to dispose of.

Cons:

• People are more likely to misuse the button to troll others.
• People might get offended by other people disliking their pics, posts or shares and this might cause emotional trauma.
• Most of the people might not distinguish between empathy and displeasure and such incidents are likely to cause an air of negativity in the world of Facebook.

Thus, introducing the dislike button is a good measure but it has the potential of backfiring in a bad way which is certainly going to be a big headache for Facebook. They also add that the disliking of company posts and business page shares will negatively impact the brand value and brand image and may even lead to the lowering of the search engine and social media ranking of certain brands and their products.

With so much mixed reaction looming around, we can just wait and watch what happens when Facebook finally launches the dislike button.

Contributed byhttp://www.arkasoftwares.com/