According to Facebook’s launch statement on Reactions, the team put a great deal of thought and planning into rolling the new feature out. During their initial tests they included a couple of additional reactions, but through tracking and interviews found that people did not use the Yay or Confused buttons. For those that manage Facebook Pages, the addition of reactions won’t immediately affect how often posts appear in the newsfeed, but Krug alluded to this being a potential in the future. For now, any use of Reactions will work just as Like Buttons have in the past. The more people interact with page posts, the more likely they will see future posts. Currently, Facebook Page Insights groups each of these into a Reactions data point. It is unclear if they will be later separated by emotion, but that will likely depending on how Facebook creates a potential weight based on the reaction used.
