Emoji Based Targeting

Not unexpected, but how well will it work compared to broader prediction?

Twitter Introduces Emoji-Based Targeting
It's Exactly What You Think It Is    By George Slefo

Facebook Analyzing Your E-Laughs

In Wired:  Is this a way to segment people for engagement?   How about linking it to images of the author?  Which Facebook may also be tagging.  Creepy factor? " ... To likely no one’s surprise, the most common expression of e-laughing is “haha” followed by emoji. Facebook goes deeper yet into the nuances of who uses what sort of online laugh: ... Age, gender and geographic location play a role in laughter type and length: young people and women prefer emoji, whereas men prefer longer hehes. People in Chicago and New York prefer emoji, while Seattle and San Francisco prefer hahas. .. " 

Emojis Creating Data

New kind of data to mine.    This was brought up in internal work.   Leverge what the consumer provides.

There's Data in Those Emojis -- and Marketers Want to Mine Them
Why Brands and Agencies Want to Interpret Pizza Slice Smiley Face

"The use of emojis is kind of like were observing a new language right in front of us," said Tony Clement, VP analytics at independent shop Big Spaceship. The agency is working with technology firms to develop definitions for brand tracking through emojis. The goal, essentially, is to apply some of the same techniques for quantifying value and measuring brand sentiment based on words in social media to metrics for imagery. ..  " 

Japan's LINE: Social Media with Personality

A Japanese colleague pointed this out to me.  In FastCompany. Creative idea.  Its a kind of digital/analog idea.   Its making value of emojis.  Virtual stickers.  Does that work outside of Japan?

" ... In Japan, the mobile messaging app LINE is so pervasive that young people swap LINE IDs instead of phone numbers. Worldwide, the app has more than 170 million active users a month. Though that leaves it smaller than Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and China’s WeChat, LINE has excelled at something that’s arguably tougher than racking up hundreds of millions of users: It’s parlayed its app’s popularity into pan-media pop-culture relevance and a powerful business model. ... "

The system also integrates a number of games, see below.

(Update) More on the LINE application.