How to React to Messages and Mention Friends in Facebook Messenger

If you’ve been using the main Facebook app, chances are you’re already familiar with reactions — those special emojis that you can use to respond to status updates and posts on the social network. And now, reactions have made their way to Facebook Messenger, allowing users of the messaging app to quickly signify their acknowledgment or express their, well, reactions to messages conversations.

Facebook Messenger reactions work in one-on-one conversations as well as group chats, and can be used to respond to messages of any type — text, links, stickers, photos, videos, GIFs, and even other emoji.

For example, if someone sends you a cute photo of her baby, you could respond with the love reaction. Or if someone shares a video of an epic fail moment, you could respond with the haha reaction. Or if you and your friends are making dinner plans with several restaurant suggestions, you could easily let others know of your preference by voting with a yes or no reaction.

How Facebook Messenger reactions work is similar to the way Apple implements Tapback expressions in iMessage. To add a reaction, just tap and hold a message and then tap to select from the available emojis: love, haha, wow, sad, angry, yes, no.

Messages that have received reactions will show at their lower corner what those emojis are along with how many people have added them. Tap the emojis to see which members of the conversations used which reactions.

When you’re in a conversation and someone reacts to a message you sent, you’ll see a small animation with the profile picture of the person who reacted and the emoji that person reacted with.

If the Messenger app is not open and someone reacts to any of your messages, you’ll receive a notification saying who reacted and with what reaction.

In a one-on-one conversation, each message sent by one is obviously directed at the other. But in a group conversation, some messages may not be meant for all and other messages may need to be expressly addressed to someone in particular. In that case, it helps to be able to mention that someone and call his or her attention to a specific message.

For example, when sharing a photo of a product that someone in your group might be interested in, you could mention that person to make sure he or she sees it. Or when you and your teammates are deciding which design to use and someone hasn’t chimed in with a vote yet, mentioning that person could serve as a reminder.

As in the likes of GroupMe and Slack, you mention someone in Facebook Messenger by typing “@“ followed by the first few letters of the name or nickname of the person you want to notify and then selecting the person from the list that appears.

That person will then receive a notification saying that he or she was mentioned in a message.

Get the latest version of Facebook Messenger to be able to use reactions and mentions as they roll out.