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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

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

TikTok is famous for short, shareable video content, but since launching its LIVE feature in 2019 many users have embraced live-streaming on the platform. For creators and brands alike, going live on TikTok is a powerful new way to engage and grow your audience through social media management, so how do you do it, and what are the benefits?


Managing Engagement and Moderation on TikTok LIVE

What does it mean to go live on TikTok? 

When you’re watching a video on TikTok it’s usually pre-recorded, but TikTok LIVE is a feature which allows some users of the service to live-stream to their audiences, so the video content is shown in real-time. 

As well as streaming live video, creators can interact with their audience in real time, so viewers can post comments and ask questions during the stream. This creates a much more engaging experience, giving fans an opportunity to interact directly with the creators that they enjoy following. 

There are some great reasons for creators to go live on TikTok. Firstly, giving your followers a real-time experience can be more rewarding and engaging than the usual pre-recorded content, because being able to participate in an event as it’s happening is more exciting than watching the edited version of something that happened in the past. 

Another aspect to consider is that streaming on TikTok LIVE gives you the opportunity to interact with your followers directly, which can build loyalty and help you to grow your fan base. Part of the reason this works so well is that fans are seeing an unpolished, unedited version of you, which can really help to convey your authenticity. 

It could also be great for increasing your visibility, because although TikTok keeps the exact details under wraps, there’s some evidence to suggest that using the LIVE feature will give your content a boost from the algorithm, helping you to reach a wider audience.


Finally, because viewers are able to send you virtual gifts during a live TikTok stream, it’s a great way to monetize your channel. 

First of all, be sure that you meet the requirements for using TikTok Live: 

You must already have at least 1,000 followers. 

No recent violations of TikTok’s T&Cs. 

There are rumored workarounds which people claim will give you access to LIVE even if you have fewer followers, but it seems that most of them do not work, and it’s likely that TikTok shuts down such loopholes as soon as they are discovered. 

If you haven’t reached that threshold yet, it’s a good idea to focus on working towards it. You’ll learn a lot along the way, and by the time you’re able to use TikTok LIVE you’ll be a much better creator. 

If you do meet the requirements, starting a live stream is simple: just open the app and tap the Add Post button at the bottom of the screen, and then select LIVE. After that all you need to do is choose a title, filter, and any other options before hitting Go LIVE to start streaming. 

You’ll now be able to stream live for a maximum of 60 minutes. At the end of your stream, the Replay will be available in TikTok Studio for 30 days, so you can download it or delete it as required. 

If you do not see the LIVE option in your app, it’s probably because you do not yet meet the requirements. If you feel that you do meet the requirements, but the option is not visible to you, you should contact TikTok’s support team.

Can I Go Live With Under 1000 Followers? 

There’s almost no way to use the LIVE feature unless you meet TikTok’s requirements, but if you’re lucky there’s a work-around that might help you to try the feature out temporarily. 

TikTok LIVE has a multi-guest feature, which means that anybody running a stream can invite other TikTok users to join the stream as a participant, even if they do not have 1,000 followers themselves. So if you know somebody who has access to the feature, you might be able to persuade them to work with you on a joint live stream.

This won’t magically give you permanent access to the feature, but it will enable you to see how it works. Also, but running these kinds of joint streams, you’ll be exposed to a wider audience and this can help you get to that target 1,000 followers threshold sooner.

You can choose to allow comments on your TikTok LIVE stream, and should you enable them you’ll have a few options to help you manage engagement during the stream. This includes the ability to flexibly mute comments either for all viewers, or specific ones, for a length of time you choose. 

You can also filter and review potentially undesirable comments using TikTok’s own filters as well as your own chosen keywords, and setting up an automated message to let all viewers know that comments are being filtered. 

Comments can also be pinned to the top of your stream’s chat. You might find it a little tricky to manage a chat while you’re busy with whatever you’re doing on the stream, so you can appoint one or more moderators to manage the chat for you, and choose which features they are able to use.

During a TikTok LIVE stream, your audience can send you “Gifts” - virtual items which are purchased with TikTok’s in-app currency, called Coins, which they purchase with their local currency. When a viewer sends a creator a Gift during a stream, the value in Coins will be added to the recipient’s balance, which they can cash out in their local currency. 

You need to be over 18 to send Gifts on TikTok, and the feature is not available in every country. 

How do you convince people to send you Gifts on TikTok LIVE? Consistently create great content and build a loyal following. There are many online communities dedicated to helping TikTok creators grow their channels, but great content is always at the heart of it. 

OK, so you know how and why to go live on TikTok, but what can you actually use the feature for? For a platform which shot to popularity on the basis of short, shareable video clips, live streams of up to an hour might seem like an almost contradictory change of direction. But there are plenty of great things you can do with TikTok LIVE: 

If you’ve built up a strong audience already, or you’re a brand or individual that people are interested in, running a live Q&A session is a great way to let people get to know you better.

Whether you’re a brand or a creator partnering with a brand, a LIVE stream is a great way to showcase a new product. You can tease the launch event to create anticipation, and then generate extra excitement by unveiling the product live instead of using a pre-recorded video. 

If you’re a performing artist such as a musician, comedian, or dancer, TikTok LIVE is a great way to give your audience a raw, unfiltered experience, so they can see you at your best. 

If you’re an influencer within a particular area such as gaming, music, or other kind of fandom, you can use LIVE to jump onto big breaking news stories in your niche, sharing your initial reactions and getting feedback from your audience. 

Live streams can be a great way to give your audience a little peek behind the scenes of your brand, or if you’re an influencer, just a more unfiltered view of the real you and all of the work that goes into creating your content. 

Using LIVE’s multi-guest feature, you can run streams in collaboration with other TikTok users and influencers, so why not partner with creator’s in the same space as you, to benefit from your combined audience reach. 


How to Go Live on TikTok, and Grow Your Audience

More momentous milestones as mobile makes moves

We already saw a wealth of digital milestones in the first six months of 2024, but the big headlines keep coming as we enter the second half of the year.

Our new Digital 2024 July Global Digital Statshot Report – published in partnership between Meltwater and We Are Social – delivers plenty of impressive numbers and trends, together with a rich selection of insights into how the world’s digital behaviours are evolving.

7 in 10 people on Earth are now using mobile phones

Competition between TikTok and Instagram is heating up

Roblox continues to build impressive momentum

AI is booming, but headlines don’t tell the full story

Reddit, Snapchat, and Pinterest have all grown ad reach

The incredible value of TikTok’s tip culture

We’ve also got a special deep-dive report on the current state of news in a connected world, with a bumper selection of insights from Reuters’s new 2024 Digital News Report, as well as DataReportal’s own research into global news trends.

That’s only a teaser of what that you’ll find in this quarter’s full report though, and this latest edition of our Global Digital Reports series is packed with loads more data, insights, and surprises.

This quarter’s reports feature an exceptional wealth of data and insight, thanks to the support and generosity of our wonderful data partners:

All of this analysis was written by a human, without the use of generative AI. If you’d like to say hello to that human, give me a wave on LinkedIn, and let me know what you found most interesting or surprising in this latest report.

Please note the following before you dive into this latest round of data:

Starting with this July 2024 report, we’ve introduced some significant changes to the structure of the sections within the Global Digital reports series. The good news is that we haven’t removed anything, but we have changed the order in which the slides appear within the report. The most obvious change is that slides which previously appeared within the Mobile section have now been integrated into other sections of the report, such that there is now no standalone Mobile section. We’ve also moved various slides that previously appeared in the Internet section into their own dedicated sections, in order to group similar behaviours and trends together in more obvious ways. You’ll also find some more new charts in this quarter’s update, so look out for those in the full report below.

Starting with the most recent Q1 2024 wave of research, GWI now offers data for audiences aged 65 and above in a selection of markets. We’re very excited about this change, but do note that the addition of these new audiences has had a meaningful impact on many of the GWI-sourced values that we include in our reports. As a result, many values in our latest report are not comparable with values for the same data points that we published in previous reports. This is partly because people over the age of 65 have quite different behaviours, preferences, and interests compared with younger audiences, and partly because data for this older age group is currently only available in a subset of GWI’s markets. This is due to the fact that it’s considerably more challenging to survey a representative sample of people aged 65+ than it is to survey people aged 16 to 64, because the older group includes almost as wide a range of ages as the rest of GWI’s sample combined.



Looking for a guided tour of this quarter’s top stories? This video unpacks 10 essential takeaways from this quarter’s report in just 10 minutes:

The complete Digital 2024 July Global Statshot Report

You’ll find this quarter’s main report in the embed below (click here if that’s not working for you), but read on past that to explore my in-depth analysis of what all these numbers actually mean for you and your work.

Let’s begin with the latest headlines for digital adoption and use around the world [please feel free to copy-paste this section into your own social media post – just remember to tag us!]:

The global population reached 8.12 billion as we began the second half of 2024, with that total figure increasing by 74 million (+0.9 percent) since July 2023. Urbanisation is also creeping up, with 57.9 percent of the world’s inhabitants now resident in towns and cities.

5.68 billion unique individuals were using mobile phones at the end of June 2024, meaning that 70 percent of the world’s population now qualifies as a mobile user. The size of this group continues to grow too, with the global total up by 126 million (+2.6 percent) since this time last year. Smartphones now account for more than 85 percent of the mobile handsets in use at a worldwide level, but 1 in 7 active handsets is still a feature phone.

Internet users have grown by 167 million (+3.2 percent) over the past 12 months, taking the worldwide total to 5.45 billion. These figures mean that 67.1 percent of the global population is now online, but a total of 2.67 billion people remained offline at the start of July 2024.

Kepios analysis shows that active social media user identities have grown by almost 6 percent over the past year, with the global total increasing by 282 million since July 2023. The latest data puts the global total at 5.17 billion, although it’s important to remember that this figure may not represent unique individuals.

Those numbers make for some impressive soundbites, but what do this quarter’s numbers tell us about how people’s digital behaviours are changing and evolving?

Let’s lift the lid on this quarter’s essential findings…

The latest data from GSMA Intelligence indicates that 70 percent of the world’s total population now uses a mobile phone.

The organisation’s latest figures put unique mobile subscribers at 5.68 billion, with that figure up by 126 million (+2.3 percent) since this time last year.

However, it’s worth remembering that – at a worldwide level – most young children won’t have a phone of their own, so it’s likely that the mobile adoption rate amongst adults is considerably higher than this overall 70 percent figure suggests.

More than a quarter of a billion people started using mobile phones over the past two years, but GSMA Intelligence’s data shows that growth is slowing.

However, this deceleration is a natural result of there being fewer and fewer people left to connect, and does not in any way imply reduced interest in mobile.

It’s also interesting to note that Ericsson offers a different perspective on mobile use to the one offered by GSMA Intelligence.

Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report data puts unique mobile subscribers at 6.55 billion, which suggests a global adoption rate of 80.7 percent – a full 10 percentage points higher than the rate indicated by GSMA Intelligence’s data.

However, Ericsson offers a lower figure for total global mobile connections.

GSMA Intelligence’s research points to a total of 8.8 billion connections, compared with Ericsson’s 8.6 billion.

For context, total connections invariably exceed unique subscriber numbers due to issues such as the same individual using more than one mobile handset or SIM (e.g. one for personal use, and another for business use).

Ericsson’s data shows that smartphones account for more than 4 in 5 of the mobile handsets in use today, with the company’s June 2024 analysis putting smartphones’ share of connections at 82.4 percent.

The number of smartphones in use has increased threefold over the past decade, with Ericsson’s data pointing to 7.1 billion of these devices in use around the world today.

That compares with the 2.3 billion smartphones that the company says were in use back in 2014, when smartphones accounted for fewer than 1 in 3 mobile connections.

Smartphones have also become the world’s primary gateway to the internet, with data from GWI indicating that 93.7 percent of internet users now go online via a smart mobile handset.

However – despite smartphones’ apparent ubiquity – more than 1 billion feature phones are still in use around the world, accounting for 1 in 7 of current mobile connections.

Meanwhile, cellular data connections also power internet access for more than a quarter of a billion routers, tablets, and mobile PCs, with these devices accounting for roughly 3½ percent of global mobile connections.

Overall, GWI’s latest figures show that 95.9 percent of us use either a smartphone or a feature phone for at least some of our connected activities.

Within that group, just 1.1 percent of adult internet users access the internet solely via a feature phone, 

This compares with 4.5 percent of internet users who use feature phones for at least some of the internet activity.

This suggests that roughly 1 in 4 people who use feature phones to go online are wholly dependent on these devices for internet access, whereas the remaining three-quarters use a combination of devices.

Interestingly however, we see a similar dependence ratio amongst smartphone users, with 24.3 percent of internet users only going online via a smartphone, compared with a total of 93.7 percent who use a smartphone for at least some of their online activities.

All remaining users go online via a combination of devices, with the typical respondent in GWI’s survey saying that they use an average of 2.7 devices to access the internet.

At a worldwide level, 62.2 percent of internet users say that they go online via laptops and desktops, suggesting that there are roughly 50 percent more mobile internet users than there are “computer” internet users.

However, it’s worth noting that GWI’s survey only covers 53 of the world’s largest economies.

These countries are home to more than 80 percent of the world’s internet users, but trends in countries not covered by GWI’s research suggest that the device split may be even greater than the available data suggest.

For example, data from Statcounter suggests that – overall – mobiles now account for more than 60 percent of global web traffic.

However, mobiles are responsible for more than three-quarters of web page requests in a total of 59 countries, while mobiles are responsible for more than 90 percent of web traffic in Sudan, Libya, Syria, and Chad.

Mobiles claim greatest share of internet time

Data from GWI also shows that mobile phones account for the greatest share of the time that we spend online.

Overall, people spend roughly 57 percent of their “connected lives” using either a smartphone or a feature phone, compared with the 43 percent they spend using laptops, desktops, and tablets.

However – as is so often the case in digital behaviours – this “device balance” varies meaningfully by country.

At the top end of the spectrum, Thais use mobiles for close to two-thirds (64.4 percent) of their online time, with larger devices only responsible for 35.6 percent of connected activity.

Conversely, Japanese people are still more likely to prefer computers and tablets, with these devices claiming 56 percent of online time in Japan.

So, despite the impressive rise of mobile phones over recent years, it’s important to highlight that computers still play an important role in our online lives.

Data from GWI indicates that more than 6 in 10 internet users still make use of laptops and desktops for at least some of their internet activity, with users in Europe particularly likely to say they use computers to go online.

However, computer use isn’t restricted to richer nations, and 4 in 5 internet users in South Africa (79.9 percent) say that they use these larger devices for at least some of their connected activities.

GWI’s new 65+ audience data also reveals that computers are particularly important for older internet users.

This may be partly due to legacy behaviours, especially because most of the people in this age group were older than 50 when the iPhone launched in 2007.

Digital 2024 July Global Statshot Report Analysis

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. 😭☹️"― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

If you’re Gen X or older, it’s possible you don't understand the full scope of emoji meanings, let alone the point of all of them. After all, people have managed to express themselves with the written word for centuries, so why do we suddenly need all these tiny images to illustrate our messages?

On the other hand, the post-Millennial generations can effortlessly communicate with each other using nothing more than a string of emoji. To them, nothing screams “I’m a hopelessly out of touch Boomer!” quite as loud as an incorrectly used emoji. That's why they're such an integral part of social media management.

So how did we get here, why are they so popular, and most importantly, with so many options to choose from, how do you decipher emoji meanings? 

Before computers had the graphical capabilities necessary to display emojis, people created emotional shorthand using plain old punctuation marks, like :-) or :-(  and :-/ to name a few.

These “emoticons” were invented long before modern computers, when typesetters in the 1880s began using various punctuation marks to create simple representations of human faces smiling, frowning, or showing other emotions. 

This image shows a selection of such proto-emojis from a German print publication in 1896: 

There are earlier recorded instances of simple punctuation-based smileys like :) in literature dating as far back as the 17th century, but in most cases historians cannot agree whether these are deliberate or just errors. 

The earliest modern example of emoticons being created by computer users were from the messaging systems used by the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. 

In 1990 Microsoft released its famous Wingdings font (still included with all Windows based PCs) which replaced alphanumeric characters with various graphical symbols, including smiling and frowning faces which could be considered early versions of emojis, even though they were never widely used. 

Graphical emojis as we know them today really began to take off with the development of mobile phones. In 1997, Japanese company J-Phone introduced a set of 90 monochrome emojis, and as phones became more sophisticated with better graphical capabilities, emojis became more detailed and colorful. 

By the time the first iPhone launched in 2007, western tech giants like Apple and Google were taking emojis seriously, looking at ways to standardize their implementation across different platforms. 

The following year, Apple added emojis to iPhone OS 2.2, and since then they’ve become an integral part of our digital lives. 

Conventional wisdom has it that emojis are used to add tone or emotion to a message, to avoid the sender’s intent being misinterpreted due to lack of context. But people have been using words to express their ideas and feelings just fine for hundreds of years without the help of emojis, so why would they need them now? 

Consider that emojis rose to popularity at about the same time as instant messaging apps, mobile phones, and short form social media like Twitter and Facebook. Suddenly people were communicating a lot more in short, rapid-fire written exchanges, whereas earlier forms such as email and blog posts afforded the writer much more space to make themselves understood.

Around the start of the millennium, an entire generation grew up chatting with their friends on MSN Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger, before moving onto smartphones and social media within a decade. They pioneered a new way of communicating, characterized by high volumes of short text messages, exchanged at high speeds - there was no time for flowery prose or long winded clarifications. 

Emojis offered a convenient way to quickly signify that your comment should be taken as a joke, or with irony, or that you’re confused, upset, or shocked. They can also be used to “react” to a message or post, often a simple thumbs-up is used to signify agreement, or just to let the sender know you received their message even if you don’t write a reply. 

Tip: For a detailed breakdown of the most-used emojis of 2023, check out our blog!

Emojis are now so ingrained into the public consciousness that we see them everywhere. They’ve gone from an almost underground phenomenon only understood by internet early-adopters, to a mainstream cultural trend. 

Beyond their function as a ubiquitous communication tool, emojis have also been great for commerce. A quick search for the term “emoji” on Amazon reveals a seemingly endless selection of emoji branded toys, games (including Emoji Uno), clothing, and novelty items such as the poop-emoji cushion. 

Emojis have even made their way into major Hollywood studio productions. In 2017, Sony Pictures released The Emoji Movie, with heavyweight names such as Patrick Stewart, Maya Rudolph, and Jennifer Coolidge voicing animated emoji characters. Critics almost universally panned the movie, but audiences rewarded it with $218 million in box office receipts. 

Almost everybody who uses a smartphone and/or the internet knows about emojis, even if they might not fully understand all of the emoji meanings, and probably use them at least occasionally. It’s fair to say that for better or worse, emojis have had a lasting impact on global culture. 

You may be surprised to learn that emojis have been the subject of some serious academic research, particularly in relation to how they are used in marketing, such as this 2022 study into how they impact conversion on social media. 

To save you a lot of reading through dense academic texts and marketing industry surveys, here’s a quick summary of what many of the studies seem to say: 

Emojis can increase engagement, in the right context.

Use them in fun, conversational copy, but not in a practical or informative context. 

Emojis used in the wrong context can damage credibility.

They work better for younger audiences (duh).

There are a lot of variables, more research is needed. 

You should do your own testing to figure out how emojis perform for you. 

So, if you’re a B2C brand, especially one with a younger customer base, it’s almost certainly worth using emojis in things like social content and direct emails, but take a scientific approach to understand how best to deploy them. For example, try A/B testing email subject lines with and without emojis.

The Meltwater Blog

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Digital 2024 July Global Statshot Report Analysis

Understanding Emoji Meanings

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