Twitter Replaces ‘Favourites’ With Hearts As It Tries To Enter The Mainstream

Since Twitter was launched in 2006, the favourite button has been a symbol of agreement, laughter or even implication – but that’s all been changed for affection.

This week, Twitter introduced a heart button to indicate a user has ‘liked’ a tweet, emulating one of its biggest rivals Facebook. Blogger for Twitter’s website, Arkasha Kumar, states ‘The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people”.

You can say a lot with a heart. Introducing a new way to show how you feel on Twitter: https://t.co/WKBEmORXNW pic.twitter.com/G4ZGe0rDTP

— Twitter (@Twitter) November 3, 2015

The decision from the company to replace its distinctive ‘favourite’ button comes as a result of apparent confusion from new users. According to its latest finance report, Twitter’s monthly average users only grew by 4 million, stagnating from 316m to 320m. Blame has been placed on its inaccessible nature for those not blessed with social media expertise.

With Periscope, Vine and Instagram all proudly displaying hearts as a way to express positivity, it was possibly only a matter of time before Twitter joined in with this universal currency of social web.

Despite not changing any functionality of the website, some Twitter uses are not pleased with the decision. For example, some journalists (who now depend on Twitter as their job) would ‘favourite’ tweets that contained newsworthy content for future reference, but if they are seen to be ‘liking’ a story that could be about war/tragedy, it does not reflect well on their online persona.

In addition to removing favourites, last week Twitter also rolled out its new ‘polls’ feature and from what we can see this hasn’t come under any negativity. When used correctly and posed with an interesting debate, brands have used them as a way of gaining interaction from their followers and have become a way of free market research.

Twitter increasing its users can increase your online brand size

Aside from personal use, how will the ‘like’ button affect brand marketers? It’s certain that they will be anaylsing the data of recent tweets with a higher sense of interest than usual to see if the new button creates more engagement.

The truth is, however, the real way to feel rewarded, build followers and create engagement is to focus on the quality and interest you can gain from your content. Once you have focused on your own personal company blog make sure to promote it through all the relevant social media channels. If it adds to the conversation the shares will come naturally.

Forever Digital is a social media agency that wants to help our clients with their online presence. We firmly believe in the power of social media so get in touch with us and soon enough you could feel the affection of an online heart.