Sparrow Reactions: Add Personality into the World of Corporate Comms

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, however while this may not ring true for a simple emoji, we still love using them to inject emotion and personality into our communications. In recent years, emoji use has been on a steady rise and today, they are now integral to the way many people communicate in the digital world – both personally and in professional situations. People are now familiar with adding a display of emotion to messages, whether it’s selecting an emoji to complement a text, or using punctuation in an email to indicate a wink, a frowny face, or a smile.

That’s why the team here at Sparrow has developed reactions – a series of emoji’s that now accompany Sparrow posts, offering users the opportunity to engage more deeply with an article, update, image, or video. Since the purpose of Sparrow is to drive engagement, proliferate culture, and connect employees – what better way to facilitate this goal?

Meet Sparrow Reactions

Reactions are a new addition to the Sparrow app, providing organizations with a pretty wide range of customization options to ensure the perfect cultural fit.

Customized Reactions

We know that not every company is the same, so Sparrow Reaction packs come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be matched to each organizations’ unique culture. In addition to choosing the name actually presented to users for each reaction (i.e. ‘hurray’ or ‘like’), companies can also select the set of icons shown in the app for each particular sentiment.

At DevFacto, we are currently using simple reactions including “Like”, “Curious”, “Concerned”, “Angry”, “Bored”, and “Hurray!” to get our team members used to interacting with Sparrow Reactions. In time, we plan to start utilizing more personalized reactions to match our internal culture and maintain a high level of excitement and engagement around the app.

Negative Reactions

Why would you want a negative reaction!? Depending on the culture of your organization, providing the option to post negative reactions (Angry, Dislike, Bored, or others) can be extremely valuable. Not only do negative reactions empower communicators to gather more accurate feedback, but it can also empower employees to feel more constructive, valued, and ultimately more engaged. After all, what’s the purpose of feedback if you can’t see the full picture?

DevFacto Reactions currently include: Like, Curious, Concerned, Angry, Bored, and Hurray!

Why Are Sparrow Reactions Important?

The opportunity to further communicate through Reactions offers a fun and engaging way for employees to interact with their organization, while simultaneously providing more in-depth feedback for communicators.

Improved Metrics and Measurement

Reactions add another layer of emotional engagement from users, providing further insight for analytics and measurement. Depending on the needs of an organization, Sparrow can now incorporate the use of reactions into post or topical awareness scoring.

Improved User Engagement

As BYOD policies proliferate the business world, the line between consumer and corporate apps is blurring. App developers now understand that much of what makes personal applications successful can be integrated into the corporate app world to increase uptake, decrease learning curves, and ultimately drive engagement.

And when you really get to the bottom of it, emoji’s are simply just more fun! Responding to an article or announcement with a reaction is way more entertaining and potentially more useful than with words alone.