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AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics?
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.
Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.
Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Running a top social media campaign that stands out takes hefty doses of creativity, patience, research, and the ability to know a good idea when you see one. The social waters are getting deeper, wider, and more crowded with every passing year. This makes it hard for brands to create content that gets noticed and achieves its purpose.

The remedy? Just look at some of the top social media campaigns of 2024 to get inspired. Ask yourself: What about these social media content ideas makes them so influential? What did these brands do well? How can your brand improve on them?

Use this list to spark your social media marketing strategy and start creating campaigns that work.  

Let’s start with a definition. What is a social media campaign, anyway?

It’s a lot like any type of marketing campaign: a planned series of events over a specific period of time designed to achieve a certain outcome that can be tracked and measured.

Unlike marketing campaigns that can apply to any number or variety of channels, social media marketing campaigns are specific to social media. Effective social media marketing takes into account each platform’s unique audience, features, and functions and builds the campaign around them.

Social media campaigns are a slice of a larger social media content marketing strategy. You use content to increase SEO, attract leads, promote products and services, and market your business.

A social media campaign is a granular content marketing tool designed to achieve a specific goal. Instead of creating just any type of content, your content should directly relate to the campaign. It’s more specific and focused, especially when you consider all the different layers of social media that must be taken into account.

Every social media marketing campaign begins with a purpose. For example, you might join a new social network and run a brand awareness campaign to ramp up your follower count. 

Or you might be launching a new product and want to run a social media campaign to raise awareness or sales. Use these goals to come up with social media content ideas that will help you reach your objectives.

From there, marketers will come up with social media post ideas to spread the word and achieve their goals. This might be custom images with the brand’s logo, quotes from a company leader, facts or stats from recent research, or ad copy that intrigues the reader, for example. 

You can even use artificial intelligence tools, like HubSpot's AI campaign assistant, to generate all of this.

After creating content for social media, you’ll decide where and when to post it. Which platforms will you post on? What time will you post content? How long will you post content around this specific goal or topic?

Finally, you should plan to track your social media posts using a social media monitoring tool like Meltwater. See how users engage with and respond to each post. Compare engagement metrics to specific actions, such as purchases, audience growth, or media mentions to see whether you achieved your campaign goals.

The benefits of social media campaigns cannot be overstated. They help brands to align with innovation and creativity. When done well, they can lead to tons of user-generated content that will help even more people enjoy your content.

Inspiring your social media content strategy is as easy as looking at what other successful brands are doing. You never know where your next social media content ideas will come from.

Here are some of our favorite social media campaign examples from 2024 and what you can learn from them.

1. Little Caesar’s “Burn the Burns” Campaign

4. McDonald’s “As Featured In” Collaboration

5. Tinder’s “It Starts with a Swipe” Campaign

1. Little Caesar's "Burn the Burns" Campaign

Little Caesar’s embraces its reputation as a budget pizza brand but also knows its price isn’t a reflection of its quality. To silence the haters, it recruited the infamous “Disaster Girl” from a popular internet meme (where the girl turns and smiles at a camera as a building burns in the background).

The brand created a TikTok campaign where Disaster Girl and others burn signs displaying negative remarks about the company and its pizza, such as “I have standards. I can’t go to Little Caesar’s.”

Young girls are impressionable and are constantly being swept in by beauty companies and social media’s impossible standards. To combat body issues before they begin, Dove launched the Face of 10 campaign, which featured girls as young as the age of 10. 

The idea is that young girls don’t need anti-aging products marketed to them and that their natural youthful glow is enough.

Are you interested in more Dove campaigns? Learn how Dove raises the bar with its #ArmsUp campaign.

Health is no laughing matter, especially when big soda companies are pushing ungodly amounts of sugar onto their consumers. Liquid Death saw an opportunity to shed light on the topic while showcasing the dangers of sugar and soda in a humorous way.

The campaign featured auditions for a fake soda brand, where attractive models tried to push the product for the camera. It also compared the sugar content of popular sodas to Liquid Death, proving flavor doesn’t need to be unhealthy. 

4. McDonald's "As Featured In" Collaboration

Nostalgia has been trending hot in advertising and marketing, and McDonald’s saw an opportunity to cash in with its “As Featured In” menu items. It features fan-favorite items that have been featured in pop culture over the years, including movies like Richie Rich, Space Jam, and The Fifth Element.

To expand the campaign’s reach, the brand is offering unique AR experiences via Snapchat. Customers can scan the QR code on the new Loki sauce to unlock custom content from Marvel Studios or access exclusive merch from skate brand PALACE.

5. Tinder's "It Starts with a Swipe" Campaign

A dating app that’s become synonymous with quick hook-ups and one-time flings, Tinder aims to change its reputation by showing it can connect people for the long term. The “It Starts with a Swipe” campaign is Exhibit A. 

The hashtag of the same name has earned hundreds of mentions from Tinder and its customers highlighting pieces of their love story that the app helped to write. The idea is to show that the dating app can offer unlimited possibilities across a wide range of relationships.

Global warming and rising sea waters continue to be hot button issues, and the nation of Tuvalu brings attention to the crisis in its First Digital Nation campaign. Experts project that Tuvalu will be completely submerged by sea waters in the next few decades, but its people continue to fight for existence by living on digitally, even after the land is no more. 

The campaign won a 2024 Webby award in the social impact category.

There’s ketchup, and then there’s Heinz ketchup. The brand leads the pack in this fan-favorite condiment, so it’s no surprise the company knows that nearly half of its customers experience ketchup-related disasters. 

To help combat stains and spillages, the company launched the Heinz Ketchup Insurance campaign with the hashtag of the same name.

Customers in the UAE can file claims for compensation in the form of house cleanings, handyman services, and even spa treatments. The goal is to turn messy moments into enjoyment, with plenty of humorous advertisements along the way.

Launched during Super Bowl LVIII, skincare brand CeraVe enlisted the help of actor Michael Cera, an unlikely candidate to promote its products. Known for his awkward humor and sense of style, Cera’s name became an ideal fit for the CeraVe brand. He was even spotted signing bottles of CeraVe at a New York City pharmacy.

Super Bowl commercials might be made for TV, but they’re notorious for blowing up on social media, too. Fans called the campaign genius and couldn’t help themselves from fawning over it on platforms like X.

Hashtag campaigns are a great way to load up on user-generated content. Fireball (known for its cinnamon whiskey) takes this to heart by running Fireball Fridays, a way to showcase how real people are having a good time with its cult-favorite drink. 

The campaign challenges fans to find creative, unique ways to show how they drink Fireball. Fans post their content with the hashtag and have a chance of being featured on Fireball’s Instagram page each week. The bolder, the better.

See also: Principles of Successful Social Media Challenges

A social impact honoree for the 2024 Webby awards, Talk Away the Dark brings light to the topic of suicide. The hashtag of the same name aims to break barriers in talking about mental health struggles and show that talking can help. 

The campaign targets those who might be at risk of suicide as well as non-suicidal individuals who can help others find the light.

Using Meltwater for Your Social Media Campaigns

No matter your campaign, posting the content isn’t the end goal. Once your campaign goes live, use brand tracking software to monitor and measure its impact so you can see how you’re making a difference.

These social media campaign examples are just the tip of the iceberg. How will you use them to inspire your social marketing strategy? For help developing your next campaign and making the most of your social media marketing, contact Meltwater today.

10 of the Top Social Media Campaigns of 2024

Getting your brand noticed and not just seen is arguably becoming harder. The bar to entry for new brands is lowering, thanks to digital technology and talent access across borders. 

Consumers are constantly bombarded with advertising messages—as many as 10,000 ad impressions per day—which leads to overstimulation and a reluctance to retain information. But a strong PR campaign can be game-changing for brands that want to break through the noise and be remembered. 

Unlike traditional advertising or marketing, a PR campaign is designed simply to get people talking. It’s a way to put your brand in the spotlight, drum up some press, and make a lasting impression on your audience. 

What exactly goes into a great PR campaign? Let’s look at some specifics as well as some of the best recent PR campaign examples from 2024.

Why Should Campaigns Be Part of Your PR Strategy?

Let’s start with a definition. A PR campaign is a series of planned activities designed to give a company or brand publicity. Most PR campaigns have specific business goals, such as driving website traffic, getting a new product noticed, or drawing attention to a cause. Activities are carried out in a specific time frame relevant to the overarching goal. 

A successful PR campaign hinges on a strong communication strategy. Create the right message for your intended audience. Choose the right channels for your message. Know who else might be listening (e.g., your competitors). With a good communication plan as your foundation, your brand can start to make a positive connection with the public.

Tip: Want to learn how to create a PR campaign? This guide will help.

In a world driven by sales messaging and calls to action, your public relations strategy can be a breath of fresh air for consumers. The brand isn’t asking for anything in return from the public. Instead, a PR campaign gives the audience a chance to learn more about the brand without marketing or sales pressure.

Taking this pressure away allows consumers to lower their guard and be more receptive to your company. A well-designed campaign breaks through their internal “ad blockers.” Campaigns aren’t just about the products or services you sell, but rather your brand identity.

As a result of a great PR campaign, brands can establish greater credibility with their audiences and build stronger media relations. Brand identities become stronger and more memorable. And in many cases, sales naturally follow.

TIP: Learn about the differences between marketing and PR.

We have published a dedicated blog telling you how to create a PR campaign, but in general, they work like this:

Every PR strategy begins with a goal. Maybe you want to call attention to a new product or a rebrand. Or maybe you want to put your brand in a positive light after receiving some negative publicity. Whatever your goal, start your PR campaign with a goal and work backward to decide the best approach for sharing your message.

Some PR campaigns consist of nothing more than a well-written press release distributed on large media networks — for example via our press distribution service. News media outlets, blogs, and other publishers may pick up the press release and share it on their channels. 

You can share the same press release on your channels, too, such as a website, blog, email subscriber list, or social media. 

Or, you might choose to launch a solely social PR strategy. Social media PR targets your social audiences and relies on likes, shares, and comments to help you spread the word. You can also pay for ads to expand your PR campaign’s reach.

Other campaigns take publicity to new heights. For example, Red Bull’s New Moon event showed wingsuit-clad stuntmen descending from the sky with sparklers, creating the image that UFOs were landing on Earth. In the UK, a nude art installation promoted Sky Arts and its milestone of becoming a free-to-air television channel.

Whether a written press release or a live publicity stunt, a PR campaign’s role remains the same: to intentionally attract attention from an audience to promote a brand (and ideally receive some sort of response).

For help planning, executing, and measuring the impact of a PR campaign while minimizing their time and cost investment, get in touch to learn more about Meltwater's media database and PR reporting.

The best PR campaigns are those where creativity knows no bounds. Best of all, any brand can benefit from a little PR, whether you’re executing a local campaign or running a national promotion.

Let’s look at 10 brands that have nailed the art of PR in 2024.

Dove doesn’t shy away from tough topics like body positivity, but their Super Bowl LVIII commercial takes a slightly different approach. Set to the song “Hard Knock Life,” it opens with young girls taking hard hits or meeting challenges in sporting events. 

It takes a tough cookie to stay in the game, but Dove shines a light on what makes most girls quit sports — and it’s not the risk of injury.

The ad cuts to a girl standing in front of a mirror, examining her reflection self-consciously. Low body positivity can be more brutal than any fall, scrape, scratch, or hit. The brand shares that 45% of females quit sports before the age of 14 and that a little body positivity can go a long way toward keeping them in the game.

The iconic hamburger menu that has taken over websites got a new twist from Oreo, which turned the three lines into a rendition of its famous cookie. The new Oreo Menu received its own website to promote the change. 

To encourage users to visit the site (and let the idea catch on), the brand made the menu clickable — and all the displayed text could be used as promo codes to score discounts on Oreo cookies. It’s a great way to get people thinking about Oreos as they’re casually browsing the web. (Those hamburger menus are everywhere!).

3. Burger King’s Million Dollar Whopper

Getting input from fans is one way to come up with a new flavor or menu item. But Burger King took this idea further by asking fans to reinvent the Whopper — with visuals.

Using BK’s own AI platform, customers could create custom virtual Whoppers with their favorite toppings. The platform would create an image of their idea, giving Burger King tons of user-generated content for their marketing. 

True to the campaign name, one lucky winner will be one million dollars richer, not to mention they’ll have bragging rights in BK’s history books for creating a new version of the iconic burger.

4. Tony’s Chocolonely’s Living Income Campaign

Dutch chocolate company Tony’s Chocolonely calls attention to subpar cocoa farming standards with its redesigned packaging that looks strikingly similar to other popular chocolate brands. It wasn’t by accident, either. 

Tony’s wanted to bring attention to other chocolate companies that use unfair, unsustainable, and unethical sourcing as an attempt to show why they’re different.

This idea of raising the (chocolate) bar offers a creative take on brand differentiation. Customers know which brands Tony’s is parodying, making them stand out as brands that need to re-examine their cocoa sourcing.

Yes, it’s an advertisement. But in true Apple fashion, this promotion is mixed with a heavy dose of PR, emotion, and so much more. In case you haven’t seen it, the “story” shows a dad and his daughter at Christmas as she opens a brand new guitar. A flashback of a bygone Christmas paints a similar scene. 

The muffled sound feels like part of the act — until dad pops in a set of new Apple AirPods Pro 2, which now includes a hearing aid feature.

The message is clear: AirPods are so much more than headphones. And Apple is so much more than a tech company. This PR/ad combo promotes the brand as a leader in innovation, showing its products have the potential to enhance the quality of life of its customers.

6. California Pizza Kitchen’s Mac and Cheese Promo

Even multi-billion dollar companies make mistakes, and fans don’t hesitate to share those blunders with the world. So when one irate customer of California Pizza Kitchen went viral for showing the lack of “mac” in their mac and cheese, the brand took it in stride with a hilarious response.

After making it right with the customer in the form of free mac and cheese and pizza for a year, CPK uploaded a TikTok video response to help others who might experience the same crisis. They offered a humorous take on the situation while showing they do listen to their customers and care about their experiences.

McDonald’s is a global love language, one that has captured the hearts of billions of people to the point where it’s become part of their culture. Despite its universal appeal, McDonald’s also recognizes the value of segmentation, which is why it decided to focus on its Manga-loving audience in a recent campaign.

The flipped “M” in “McDonald’s” first appeared in the manga series Cat’s Eye 39 years ago (an episode called “A Mystery for Winter Night”). Manga’s growth in popularity sparked the idea for McDonald’s to temporarily become WcDonald’s in 30 markets, which also included a few new items like the Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce.

At a time when public trust in science and medicine is low, long-standing pharmaceutical company Pfizer aimed to win them back. It debuted its commercial during Super Bowl LVIII, set to the tune of Queen’s hit song, Don’t Stop Me Now.

Throughout the commercial, we see historical figures, scientists, and medical experts who forever changed medicine and healthcare. These same people were once thought to be crazy, unsuccessful, or downright wrong. 

The ad is a subtle reminder that science and medicine are constantly evolving. Today’s mystery may become a scientific fact in the near future.

Unlike many toys that come with age guidelines, LEGO is a brand that knows no age limit. You’re never too old to play, and the brand stays true to this belief in its Play is Your Superpower campaign. 

The brand is hoping to change the narrative by creating opportunities around the world for families to play together. Experiences include a massive multi-floor playable library in China, a restaurant-themed pop-up event in Japan, a dance studio experience in Australia, and an exhibit at Berlin’s Festival of Lights, among others. 

The campaign also has a dedicated page on the Lego website, which features campaign-related content and info on the global events.

Social listening is a big part of public relations. It shows you’re not only listening to your customers’ feedback, but also creates opportunities for two-way communication and proactive problem solving. 

Trendy cup maker Stanley didn’t hesitate to seize a moment at the end of 2023, when it went viral based on a customer’s misfortune.

After a Stanley cup user’s car caught on fire, she created a TikTok video highlighting the damage to her car and her beloved Stanley cup, then revealed that her cup still had ice in it! It was a bold testament to the quality of the product, and Stanley repaid her in the form of a new cup — and a new car.

How will you create your next PR campaign? Meltwater can help you shine when you need it most. Our PR strategy tools and expertise help you create and manage your PR campaigns from end to end.

Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below!

10 of the Best PR Campaigns of 2024

For decades, emojis have shaped how we communicate online, but their popularity and meaning are constantly in flux. With social intelligence data marketers can learn more about how emojis are used over time, in different communities and contexts. 

To learn more about how emoji usage has changed over the past year, we used our social listening and analytics solution to follow up on our 2023 analysis of the most-used emojis. Like last year, we examined mentions of 10 popular emojis in English-language social media posts across 15 platforms, including X, Reddit, and Instagram. 

Here is how these emojis rank from least- to most-mentioned from January 1 through November 30, 2024:

10. 😊, or Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes

5. 🤣, or Rolling on the Floor Laughing

Let’s take a closer look to uncover more about the emojis that took over our digital communications this year.

Learn which emojis your audience uses most when talking about your brand, industry, or market with a demo of the Meltwater Suite.

Which emojis were most popular on each social platform in 2024?

Which emojis were most popular in different countries in 2024?

😭, or loudly crying face, was the most-used emoji on social media in 2024, surpassing last year’s winner 😂, or face with tears of joy. From January 1 to November 30, 2024, 😭 was used about 761 million times across social media channels. Daily mentions spiked highest on November 23 when multiple posts featuring  😭 went viral on X.

As always, the top emoji on social media fluctuates, with some seasonal consistencies like ❤️ being the most popular emoji on Valentine’s Day. In 2024, there were two notable trends that we didn’t see last year. 

First, 😂 briefly rose to become the most-used emoji on November 6, 2024, the same day it was announced that Donald Trump had won the U.S. presidential election.  

Second, 🔥 was the most popular emoji on November 18, as well as from November 27 to November 29, due surges of posts on X about cryptocurrency, new music releases, and Hindu rights protests in Bangladesh. Otherwise, 😭 was the most popular emoji for most of the days in 2024.

What words are most associated with the top emojis of 2024?

The most common keywords mentioned alongside each emoji gives us a window into how they are often used. Some of these keywords remained consistent to last year:

“love” was the top keyword for 🥰, ❤️, and 😍

“life” was the top keyword for 😭 and 😂

However, the top keywords changed for four out of the 10 emojis analyzed, highlighting how their associations have shifted. In 2024:

“smile” was the top keyword for 😊, in 2023 it was “friend”

“world” was the top keyword for ✨, in 2023 it was “life”

“family” was the top keyword for 🙏, in 2023 it was “life”

“video” was the top keyword for 🤣, in 2023 it was “life”

In general, these shifts point to how the emotional resonance of each emoji has evolved. More specifically, 🤣 seems to be growing more associated with funny videos than descriptions about life and personal experiences. 

Check out our blog about the changing meanings of emojis to learn more about how consumers and marketers alike use them to communicate.

😭 was most popular on X, while 😂 took the top spot on Reddit and Facebook, as well as in comments. Interestingly, though ✨ was the seventh most popular emoji overall, it was the most-used one on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitch, and blogs. On Pinterest in particular, which had the highest volume of ✨ mentions, the emoji is the go-to way to give a pin a little pizzazz. 

Get more stats on social media usage trends in our Global Digital Report.

In 2023, we analyzed the top emojis for five countries with the highest volumes of English-language emoji usage. In 2024, two of those countries gained a new favorite emoji:

The most popular emoji in the United States was 😭, in 2023 it was 😂. 

The most popular emoji in India was 🔥, in 2023 it was ❤️. 

The most popular emoji in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, 😂, remained consistent from 2023 to 2024, as did South Africa’s top emoji, 😭. In the end, it seems that South Africa’s emoji users were ahead of the global curve.

In 2024, Unicode, the organization behind emoji standardization, rolled out six new concepts along with four new family combinations. Our analysis focused on four of the new emoji concepts:

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