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To facilitate execution of global, large-scale influencer marketing campaigns at Relatable we rely a lot on data to give us insights. Using a sample of about 2 million Instagram accounts (with a minimum of 1,000 followers) and 40 million posts Iāve been digging deep compiling statistics, getting insights, or discovering some quirky factsāāāall of which Iām sharing in a number of articles.
In the last article I looked at the unexpected usage of filters. This time Iāve looked at the quite special usage of emoji hashtags on Instagram. Not only is it a way to tag a post with emotion, some of them act as something resembling a portal to a secret cult of likeminded Instagrammers. Letās have aĀ peekā¦
Where did they comeĀ from?
Emojis have been around for a long time. The name reveals their origināāāit means āpicture-characterā in Japanese, and started to appear on Japanese mobile phones in the late 1990s. However, it was first when Apple included emojis on the iPhone in 2011, followed by Android in 2013, that they became popular worldwide.
How many emojis are there? As of version 10.0 of the standard Unicode characters set there is 1,144 emojis. However, this is not the whole truth since many emojis can be modified with different skin tones. 102 human emoji may be combined with five different modifiers besides the default, for example š¦+š¾=š¦š¾. Additionally, emojis may be joined together in various combinations, as with the family emoji š©āš©āš§āš¦ consisting of the sequence š©+š©+š§+š¦. Worth noting is that Instagram does consider modifiers when they index hashtags, so you will get different results if you look at š©š½āš¬ compared toĀ š©š»āš¬.
The spiral of popularity
So which emoji hashtags are used on Instagram? Pretty much all of them! This is a visualization of the 350 most used emoji hashtags where size and position in the spiral indicate its popularity. The bigger and further outāāāthe more frequently used itĀ is.
Letās have a look at the top 20 a littleĀ closerā¦
Most used emoji hashtags on Instagram
Clearly, Instagram is quite a positive medium with lots of love š and joy š. Not surprisingly it is about taking that photo šø (with or without flash!). It is generally hot š„ and people have muscles šŖ. No one can resist a puppy š¶ on the Internetāāāand on Instagram, they are more popular than cats that didnāt make it to the top list. Among foodstuff, the peach š seems to attract a lot of attentionā¦
Letās have a look at some sub-categories ofĀ emojis.
Most Popular Countries
Popular is probably not the appropriate word here, most frequently occurring is a better description. Letās have a look atĀ flags!
Most used flag emoji hashtags on InstagramMost PopularĀ Food
We all love food (and taking photos of food, to the annoyance of others). After Apple solved what appeared as one of the planetās most significant needs in 2015 by adding the taco emoji in iOS 9.1, there should be no reason why we canāt get a representative ranking of the most popular food by looking in ourĀ data.
Most used food emoji hashtags on Instagram
If we also included drinks the glass of wine š· would have made it to third place and beer šŗ onĀ fifth.
Most PopularĀ Animals
The internet is all about cute, fluffy animals, right? Letās see who ranks as the mostĀ popular.
Most used animal emoji hashtags on Instagram
Due to popular demand also fictional animals are considered animals.
Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts and reflections, and keep following to not miss out on more quirky insights on Instagram usage.
Fair use: Feel free to quote or use any of these findings. When doing so, attribute the author and provide a link back to the originalĀ article.
Stefan is CTO and co-founder of Relatable, a marketing agency that uses data and technology to help customers like Google, Lego, Adobe, Tinder, Verizon and Spotify to do super efficient, large-scale influencer marketing campaigns.
The mysterious world of Instagram emoji hashtag usage was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.