Twitter’s Emoji Targeting: No Visible Success Yet

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Twitter’s emoji targeting is not really bearing any fruit yet. Often brands and agencies are very quick to adapt the latest social media features like Facebook Live, Snapchat’s phone and video chat or Instagram Stories, but Twitter’s Emoji Targeting has failed so far, says Digiday.

Brands staying away from Emoji Targeting?

The micro-blogging platform introduced Emoji Targeting in June to open unique opportunities for marketers, but it does not seem to be working as well as features from rivals. It has not gained much traction from most brands and agencies.

Will Thompson, a senior social strategist for agency Giant Spoon, said he had not seen a ton of action on Emoji Targeting because it is still in its infancy (primary stage). Thompson did not question Twitter’s ability to offer creative, real-time targeting features, but neither did he see brands adopting Emoji Targeting. He added that clients are rather more willing to increase their ad spend on performance-based digital ads, the report noted.

Emoji Targeting could be useful for brands and agencies that want to influence users with some clear emotions around their services and products, thinks Kelly Meyers, associate director of creative strategy for Code and Theory. However, Code and Theory has not leveraged Emoji Targeting on Twitter yet, the report says.

“It seems like this feature is skipping ahead of other emoji optimizations that would get brands on board faster,” Meyers said.

Stephen Boidock, director of social media for Drumroll, says the notion of having the ability to target users who just used or engaged with an emoji sounds cool, but brands may not have a good understanding of the context the emoji is used in, the report notes. Nevertheless, Pepsi added almost 50 custom-branded stickers this month on the social network. These stickers let users overlay searchable branded emojis on top of their photos.

Twitter praised for fight against terror

Twitter’s emojis may or may or not be getting popular, but its efforts against terrorism are definitely winning applause.  Recently the Anti-Defamation League praised Twitter’s move to shut down more than 300,000 accounts that promoted terror.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt praised the move, saying that the micro-blogging site has really set the right tone in the fight against nefarious content on its platform.

“By suspending accounts that have regularly promoted terror and other deeply troubling content, Twitter has taken an important step forward in combating cyberhate,” Greenblatt said, as quoted by JTA.

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