In a new move to establish itself as a player in visual media, Twitter has released promoted stickers for users to slap on photos, with Pepsi as its launch partner. Promoted stickers allow brands to design four to eight images that appear in the group of stickers users can scroll through and select when decorating photos in the app (Twitter released its stickers feature in June 2016). Twitter's blog pitches the branded stickers as "an opportunity for brands to drive brand affinity and raise awareness of their message at scale...to create an interactive experience."
It also appears that Twitter's promoted stickers will allow brands to measure sticker engagement across the platform, acting as a "visual hashtag" for both audiences and brands to see how other users are interacting with each sticker. While platforms like Snapchat and Japanese messaging app Line have been allowing users to interact with stickers for some time, measurement of visual media has been a pain point for brands seeking a way to prove ROI on social. The photo tracking feature wrapped into Twitter's sticker launch could therefore prove the most valuable way for Twitter to establish itself in an already crowded visual social media market.
My first tweet w/ Twitter's new promoted #Stickers... and first time ever using stickers. Not sure I'll use em. pic.twitter.com/CkUKXc53Xc
— Geoffrey Blosat (@GeoffTBlosat) August 16, 2016
Time will tell if users will choose promoted stickers over unbranded stickers when sharing photos, becoming witting or unwitting social influencers for brands like Pepsi. Stickers worked well for Line, which scored this year's largest tech IPO to date, with its stickers making up a quarter of the company's revenue in 2015. But with the growing popularity of augmented reality (Pokémon Go, Snapchat lenses), Twitter may need to step up its game to keep up with its hefty visual competition on social.
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