Twitter fans said goodbye to the stars earlier this month, and are already in love with the network’s new way to “favorite.” The like button that made its way to Twitter feeds on November 3rd gave users a little bit of anxiety. But the “like” is already seeing great success. According to Twitter’s SVP of Product Kevin Well, the switch from favorites to likes brought in 6% more “liking” activity within the first week. And it doesn’t stop there.
The universality of the heart will be expanding to more emotive buttons on the social networking site, so users can continue to let people know how they really feel about their tweets. “The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people,” product manager at Twitter Akarshan Kumar said. The heart and other emoticons to be introduced are “universal symbols that resonate across languages, cultures, and time zones.”
Although you might hate Twitter’s new changes, the expanded use of emojis is simply a response to the growing popularity of these on other services. So why can’t Twitter join the party? After all, 2015’s word of the year is an emoji.