Twitter now lets you add Facebook-style emoji reactions to direct messages.
There are currently seven to choose from — one more than Facebook offers — including the familiar thumbs up, laughing face, and love heart. They help Twitter keep up with rival messaging platforms, such as iMessage.
Twitter has slowly but surely been working to improve its direct messaging platform in recent years. It’s part of a bigger plan to make the service more of a social network where users can connect, rather than just a micro-blogging site.
Emoji reactions might be a very small part of that, but it might be one that’s necessary for Twitter to compete with other messaging platforms — especially among younger users who love their emojis.
Twitter brings emojis to your DMs
You can use emoji reactions on Twitter.com, as well as inside the official Twitter apps. Simply tap the new heart icon alongside a direct message (or double-tap the message on mobile) and choose from one of seven emojis.
Options include a laughing face, a surprised face, a crying face, a love heart, fire, thumbs up, and thumbs down. That should be all you need to respond to most messages when you have nothing else to say.
Every time you add a reaction to a message, the recipient will receive a notification so they won’t miss it. And if you add a reaction in a group conversation, all participants will get an alert.
sliding into your DMs like ❤️
— Twitter (@Twitter) January 22, 2020
Twitter says you can undo a reaction at any time and it will disappear for everyone — not just you. But as far as we can tell, there’s no way to disable reaction notifications without disabling DM notifications altogether.
Go emoji mad today
You can start enjoying emoji reactions on Twitter today. You may have to download the latest version of the Twitter apps for Mac and iOS if you haven’t already.
If you’re using an older version of Twitter that doesn’t support emoji reactions for any reason, Twitter says the reactions will be delivered to you inside a new direct message instead.
