You might have thought you’d graduated from using stickers when you left elementary school behind, but social media companies seem to have embarked upon a mission to make stickers cool again. The latest to join the frenzy is Twitter, which launched searchable stickers two months ago, and has now introduced Promoted Stickers. In partnering with Pepsi to bring this latest feature to market, Twitter says these stickers are just the latest way “to provide fun ways for people to express themselves.”
Much like other stickers, adding one of these promoted icons (in this case, a fizzy drink) causes a hashtag to appear within your tweet. This, in turn, makes your tweet discoverable to Pepsi, which likely helps with its advertising and marketing tactics. “A brand’s stickers will be featured in the #Stickers library and offer a form of creative expression that makes a person’s photos more fun and engaging,” Twitter said in a blog post announcing the new feature. “Promoted #Stickers represents a huge opportunity for brands to drive brand affinity and raise awareness of their message at scale.”
While Pepsi may be the first brand to get on board, Twitter may soon be able to convince others to follow suit, especially considering the prevalence of stickers across other social media (and by extension, advertising) platforms like Facebook and Snapchat. For now, Twitter says, “Brands can design four or eight stickers — like accessories and other props — for users to add to their own photos. Photos with a brand’s stickers are shared with all of a user’s followers, allowing brands to be featured by their fans in a truly authentic way.”
Calling them “visual hashtags,” Twitter seems confident that these Promoted Stickers will allow a brand to “see and engage with the people who are using their stickers in creative ways.”
