Emoji use is far more than a cute little symbol added to the end of a text these days.  It’s practically a language all of its own. It provides a window into detailed and personal information about someone. Twitter understands that and in addition realizes how valuable that information is and how it can be used to create targeted advertising messages. A person’s emoji use can indicate certain things about their personality. It can also provide information such as personal interests, favorite sports, food preferences and so much more.

As part of Twitter’s ongoing efforts to help businesses deliver more targeted advertising, Twitter recently introduced targeting based on recent emoji usage. Advertisers can now target people who have used a specific emoji. For example, an advertiser could target those who used a pizza emoji or those who have used a specific sport emoji.  Emoji use has become so widely accepted that according to the Oxford Dictionary the word of the year in 2015 was none other than an actual emoji! It has become so popular that there is now a “World Emoji Day” and it’s coming up on July 17th! There is actually an entire website dedicated solely to tracking emoji usage on Twitter. And while spots can shift around a bit as results are reported in real-time, the laughing face with the tears almost always ranks right up at the top. Anything heart related is another top ranker!

Targeted marketing is getting better all the time and Twitter and emoji  driven advertising is another example of marketing innovation at its finest.