@damon One way they could maybe improve this would be to have multiple bubbles, one for likes and one for other things. Maybe, you could hover over it to get a breakdown.
When you see just the indicator, it's not clear whether it's a reply, in which case you might take a look at it sooner, or a like.
Another thing is that sometimes someone will go through a bunch of your posts to give them a like. There could be an event that is like "person liked 7 of your posts" and you could click on it to get the details.