Twitter recently announced that on July 17 
, also known as World Emoji Day, advertisers will be able to target audiences based on what emojis they use in their tweets. Emojis are the “new” best way for someone to express their emotions and cravings through social media. They are extremely popular, so it was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to monetize them. There is such a variety of different emojis that can be used to help advertise food, cars, jewelry, etc., and one can definitely make the case that advertising through emojis will only lead to success for businesses.
So what exactly is Twitter trying to do here?
1. Connect Brands with Interested Customers
The lack of expression that comes along with simply reading a message has always been a problem in communicating through the Internet and through social media. Now that we have emojis, it is much easier to add a little smiley face to the end of a message in order to express your thoughts and feelings. These emojis are especially useful on a site like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters to post what you want to say and how you feel.
Up until now, brands have been able to target potential customers using keywords. Now, these brands are starting to seriously take advantage of emojis because it helps them determine whether or not a potential customer would be interested in buying their product. Emojis can also help a brand determine whether or not someone is in a good or bad mood (smiley vs. frown face), which may help show brands how likely one would be to buy their product at that time.
2. Emoji Targeting
According to Twitter, more than 110 billion emojis have been used on their site in the last two years and emojis are used by 92% of the online population (Social Media Today). Based on this, it seems like there are only positives to using emojis to target potential customers. The more that people continue tweeting emojis, the more traction a brand or a specific product will gain.
So how does emoji targeting work?
A brand like McDonald’s buys their Twitter ads through AdParlor, Amobee, HYFN, Perion, SocialCode or 4C – giving them the right to use and advertise with the burger emoji, for example (Marketing Land). After that, anytime anyone tweets that emoji, they will start to get targeted with McDonald’s burger advertisements. Emoji targeting is a great way for companies to form better relationships and better connections with their customers, as well as to generate more interest in their brand and their products.
3. Reach Potential Customers Based on What They Like and How They Feel
It does seem a little creepy that if I were to tweet a 
, there is a chance I could start seeing advertisements for antidepressants, or if I were to tweet 
, advertisements for toilet paper could start to pop up on my feed. However, for advertisers, it certainly is a great way to reach customers on a whole new level.
As a brand, it would definitely be helpful to have some kind of hint into what a potential customer is feeling because it could give you insight into the likelihood of any particular customer actually purchasing or being interested in your product. If someone is tweeting a lot of sad face emojis on a certain day, it gives the brand more insight to know to avoid advertising to that customer. Brands will have more freedom in who they target, rather than blindly advertising to all users.
