Twitter Is Bringing Stickers You Can Add To Your Photos. And They're Searchable Too

Twitter is changing in many parts. From eliminating its 140-character limit to make itself more useful, it's now showing its dedication to make its pictures more interesting to see.

As many Twitter users post photos on the platform, some may find them dull or "boring". As a quick workaround to the problem, Twitter is putting more colors to them with the introduction of stickers.

Twitter has added native support for photos five years ago. Since then, the company has been incorporating more features. But apparently, none could scale to what others are having. Like for example, Twitter having photo support to compete with Instagram. But now, Twitter wants to change that, at least a bit.

On June 27th, 2017, Twitter introduces stickers. With the feature, users can spice up their photos with props, emojis and more.

But is this thing old? Path has it, so does Snapchat. Yes it is old, but Twitter tweaked it to make it more interesting.

As a start, the feature allows users to pick and choose various of stickers they can place on photos they upload to the platform. Because stickers can make an already boring picture a bit more interesting, Twitter and users can expect a higher engagement to sticker-populated photos.

To add stickers to a photo, you just need to edit the photo to pick a sticker you want on a "rotating set of stickers" that have a variety of categories: including accessories, smiley faces and emoticons, animals, food, sports, transportation, technology, symbols, flags, and more. You can resize and move chosen stickers around as you see fit. After all is done, you can then tweet the picture (and the attached stickers) for others to see.

And now is what makes this feature more interesting: it works both ways.

So when your followers see that photo you put stickers on, they can click/tap on the photo to search for that sticker.

What this means is others that click/tap on that sticker, can see a timeline of all public images that use that same sticker. So if you put a hat on your best friend, someone could tap on that hat sticker to see who have used that sticker, and on what picture.

This feature is similar to hashtags, but this time it's dedicated to emojis and visuals.

According to Twitter's Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland, millions of tweets with photos are sent daily, and the inclusion of what's being called “visual hashtags” will usher in a new search capability - what hashtags did for tweets, stickers will now do for photos.

And makes it more interesting is that you can stick limitless stickers onto a picture. Twitter isn't limiting how many/few stickers you can add. So any stickers that are placed on an image will all be clickable and searchable.

The stickers you'll find on Twitter are Twitter's; so don't expect to see them on your favorite third-party apps. The company said that it will continue to rotate what to offer.

"#Stickers give people a fun way to add their own unique style to their photos and connect them with others around the world," explained Berland. "By making stickers searchable, like hashtags, we're enabling the best of Twitter: Making it easy for people to create conversations around events and experiences that are happening right now."

Earlier, Twitter has been ramping up its effort on how it shows videos on its platform, redesigned its Android app using Google's Material Design and not to mention announcing 360-degree video feature. With stickers now included on its new feature, Twitter is on the move in putting more emphasize on visuals than ever before.

Using stickers is kind of old. But Twitter has found a great way to make it exciting and of course, contextual. The feature is rolling out gradually to all users.