Social Media Round Up - Twitter Emojis, Snapchat & Facebook

This week's blog comes from Billy - Follow him @_billy_ward on Twitter!

We continue our social media breakdown with a specific ad focused edition. People are changing, our apps are changing, and the way advertisers get their message across is changing. We look at Twitter and Emoji’s, Snapchat's redesign, and Facebook tracking everywhere you go (but that’s a good thing).

Twitter Emojis

Continuing our trend of bring you the latest news about Twitter, the social media giant is announcing that advertisers can now target users who tweet or engage with a certain emoji. In 2015, the Oxford Dictionary released the word of the year as an emoji (happy crying emoji). So that means if you tweet with a pizza emoji, it’s very likely that dominoes with hit you up with a cheesy offer. Krispy Kreme can find you if you tweet a doughnut emoji, if you tweet with an eggplant emoji…well, we’ll let you think of who can target you.

Twitter Ads API Products Manager Neil Shah wrote that “Emojis have become a ubiquitous way for people, publishers, and brands to express their feelings”. Going on to claim that 110 billion emoji’s have been tweeted since 2014.

Did you know, the origin of the word comes from Japan where e (?, "picture") + moji (??, "character"), any similarity to the English word emotion or emoticon is pure coincidence.

Twitter is making some big moves in the advertising world this one come just in time for world emoji day on July 17^th, yep that’s an actually thing.

http://worldemojiday.com/

Snapchat is changing

Snapchat is the fastest growing mobile app used by young people, with over 150 million users a day, however the Discover channel only gets 1 million views a day. This is important for ads, which are situated in the Discover section of Snapchat.

After a recent funding round, the company is valued at $18 billion, despite not having strong success with ads. This week however, Snapchat has redesigned the Discover channels, no longer just having a logo, now, there is a cover photo and a headline of the story. This update is designed to entice users into watching the stories, thus receiving the adverts.

Another issue that Snapchat have is the lack of analytics that they can offer, where platforms like Facebook and Instagram can collect all the data they want, Snapchat is lacking. However, this week, the social network partnered with software giant Oracle, and hired two executives to focus specifically on measurement.

Clement Xue, Global Head of Revenue Operations at Snapchat said that “We have listened and we have worked really hard, I don’t think there is any other platform that has put together these measurement partnerships as quickly as we have”.

You can’t say that the disappearing photo platform isn’t trying. We are all waiting with baited breath to see what they announce next.

Facebook knows what you did last summer

In an attempt to stay ahead of the curve, Facebook is adding maps to its local ads to try and track whether an ad has influence their in-store. Further increasing the level on analytics that it can offer its ad partners. Facebook is not producing their own map platform, but are taking on the native map app built into people’s phones, i.e., Google Maps, and Apple Maps. Users won’t need to leave the app at all soon, with it now offering directions, business hours, and retrieving phone numbers.

The social media monster is taking advantage of the increased capability of modern smart phones, by tracking the location services (of those users who choose to share it). Combining with WiFi, the app will be able to track when a user step foots into the shop and spends money.

Data is the new currency, if an app can offer more, they then bring great value for money. The app can track your location, your spending habits, and control what ads you see and when. It’s a little scary, but it can only improve our lives. Right?

So consider your social media ad news now rounded up; well, until next week when undoubtedly they all will release a new and exciting feature!