Reaction

In communities, a reaction is a response to a post often made using likes, dislikes, upvotes, downvotes, and mostly, emojis. Reactions are the most commonly used way for a member of a community to respond, engage, or interact with a post.

The reason why reactions are the go-to ways for people to interact with a post is because of how easy it is. You just have to use something that already exists and it can depict how you feel about the post without actually saying anything.

Reactions also help community managers identify which posts are more popular, most liked, or maybe even controversial. It’s very heavily seen as a very reliable metric for measuring engagement in a community. As reactions are the easiest way to engage, it’s the closest metric that correlates with the number of total active members in the community.

A post with a great number of likes, upvotes, or positive emoji reactions can help understand what kind of content the community enjoys. Similarly, a post with downvotes, dislikes, or negative emoji reactions can help understand if the content is offensive, inappropriate, or just consensually not likable by the community.

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