Emoji Targeting

Are you excited for “World Emoji Day”?! No, we’re not either. But Twitter is.Twitter is launching a new initiative for advertisers to target users depending on their engagement with specific emojis. Brand promoters recon they can identify people’s moods and mindsets by studying their emoji activity.This new method is essentially no different to targeting keywords, however, brands can only search for one emoji at a time. However, anyone interested in using emoji targeting will have to go through Twitter’s official partners: AdParlor, Amobee, HYFN, Perion, SocialCode, or 4C.Some brands have already clocked onto the power of the emoji and have made them a focus of their campaigns. For example, Chevy released an emoji-only press release for the 2016 Cruze and Domino’s enabled their customers to order by tweeting at them with the pizza emoji.Now advertisers are able to reach people depending on their food preferences, sentiments and interests, programming their posts to appear in the timelines of those who have posted and engaged with content including certain emoticons or symbols. Another concept of this new advertising approach is for brands to design ads that provoke certain emotions and then direct them towards people who might empathise, based on their tweeting history.Its no surprise that Twitter is keen to monopolise on Brands’ interests as a new way to bring in more money. During the Superbowl last year some ads spent almost $1m for a personalised icon to coincide with their Twitter Campaigns. However, I doubt this new method will have as big an effect as they’re hoping, or if there’s any potential growth that could come from this. It may just be prolonging twitter’s inevitable demise as other forms of social media overtake it.

We argue that shareable content is the best way to target the emoji-enthusiasts of social media, this new initiative is going to draw more and more attention to people’s posts and content. So why don’t media companies produce reactive, provocative content in order to benefit from the attention emojis are getting and save viewers the stress of being judged by their favourite icons.