How to Create A Customized Emoji?

In today’s world, communication has shifted from phone calls to long conversations on messaging apps and social media. And when you communicate via text messages, the people you are talking to might not always understand what you mean to say. This is where the role of an emoji – a cartoonish pictogram – becomes significant as it helps you express your emotions. It also makes us look more friendly, interested, and involved in an online conversation. Over the past few years, emojis have formed a universal language across different platforms, which helps express excitement, sadness, amusement, or emotions that can’t be expressed in words.

Emoji originated in Japan in the late ’90s, and now the whole world uses it. Every social media app and the messaging app support emojis. Anyone can understand the meaning of smiley, angry, sick, etc. emoji. There are varieties of emojis dedicated to sentiments, profession, food, travel, flora, fauna, etc. but there are some limitations. At times, you might want to express something specific to your close friends but can’t find the perfect emoji to match your thoughts. In such cases, you can create a custom emoji. If you are interested in doing so, then try the following guidelines for making a custom emoji.

Use Discord or Slack for Emoji Customization

It is recommended to use Slack or Discord messaging app for creating an emoji of your choice. In case you are unfamiliar with these apps, Discord is a messaging app used while playing multiplayer video games. Discord also lets you communicate via voice calls, video calls and enables you to share media and files in private chats or servers. On the other hand, Slack offers many IRC-style features for internal communications. Its features include persistent chat rooms or channels categorized as the topic, private groups, and direct messaging.

To add a new emoji, you have to create an emoji from scratch. Generally, messaging apps like these impose restrictions due to which you have to ensure that the emoji’s size and pixels fit the criteria perfectly. In this guide, we will use Slack for creating an emoji. It restricts the users to create emoji that should not consume more than 64KB of space, and its height & width is also restricted to 128 pixels only. For creating an emoji, it is better to use image-editing software. We would recommend using Pixlr as it is a web-based application and is available for free.

If you have some excellent artistic skills, it would be easier for you to create an emoji using the app mentioned above. If you want to draw a typical old emoji with a hint of personalization, then start with a yellow circle on a transparent background so that the emoji is visible. Use different drawing tools like pencil, marker, etc. to start adding facial features like eyes, mouth movement, or anything you like.

If you don’t like the idea of creating a traditional emoji, then try using an image from your gallery to make an emoji out of it. To so do, use the following steps:

1. Start with selecting a picture you want to convert into an emoji.
2. Then, open the image you selected in the photo-editing app.
3. Then, use the Lasso tool to draw traces on the edges to the picture.
4. After tracing the edges, cut the image, and start creating a new image. It would be better to use a solid or transparent background with the image so that the emoji is visible.
5. Now, paste the cut out on a new window and edit the picture as per your preference.
6. Save and export the image in PNG format.

Now that the emoji is saved on your device, open it using Slack and click on the Emoji button. Scroll down the page to find the link labeled as ‘Add Custom Emoji Here.’ Click on that option and start uploading the emoji you created. Then, add a name to that emoji.

Discord

1. If you prefer using the Discord app, then use the following steps:
2. Find the server in which you want to add the emoji you create.
3. On the upper left side of your screen, tap on the drop-down menu to open more options.
4. Then, click on Server Settings.
5. Select the emoji you created and click on the Upload Emoji button.

Note that before adding the emoji, you will need permissions within that server. If you are the one who created that server, then you don’t need any permission. And if the server belongs to someone else, they have control on the permissions. Then you have to contact them.

Contact Unicode Consortium

Emoji creation is easy on Slack and Discord, but if you want to create something for the iOS or Android platform, you have to contact Unicode Consortium. Unicode Consortium is a group responsible for regulating a wide range of emojis commonly found on all the devices. If you are a budding emoji artist, you have to submit your work to the Unicode Consortium selection committee. They will judge your emoji on a few factors, and then only they can approve your work and get it on all the significant gadgets. You can check Consortium’s website to find more about the rubrics and requirements.

Source:-   How to Create A Customized Emoji?

 

Everything You Need to Know About the Upcoming “Birdwatch” Feature by Twitter

Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms. There are millions of active users on Twitter who use this platform to express themselves with words, pictures, and videos. The possibility of spreading fake news through Twitter is also high because of its easy access, and thus Twitter keeps coming with innovative ideas to make the platform safer and reliable for users. Recently, Twitter confirmed that it is developing a new feature called “Birdwatch”. This feature will enable users to warn each other from browsing misleading tweets. Twitter has come up with this innovative feature to prevent the spread of false and fake news. This feature is going to be useful as it will minimize the circulation of those tweets, which can harm a community.

Twitter has not yet released official details about the “Birdwatch” feature, but the tech-geeks have already started to sense the arrival of the new feature. It was first brought to light by a tech-blogger Jane Manchun Wong, who uncovers the new features of any app by using reverse engineering tactics. In a tweet made on 5th August, she said that Twitter was working on a moderation tool to monitor misinformation and moderators would be able to flag tweets as misleading, and also add a note to it. She also added a screenshot of the feature in the tweet. Later, in late September, it was almost made sure that this new “moderation tool” is “Birdwatch” as Matt Navarra, a social media consultant spotted a dedicated “Add to Birdwatch” button below a tweet. He also confirmed that users would be able to attach a public or private note to a tweet with this new feature. With the new “Birdwatch” feature, Twitter will let moderators decide the nature of a tweet with voting. With a miniature survey, moderators will be able to vote if a tweet is misleading or not, and if it is, then to what extent it is harmful. We can expect Twitter to roll out more information about this “Birdwatch” feature, as Twitter’s product lead said that Twitter would share more about their plans soon, replying to a tweet of Jane Manchun Wong.

We cannot say when will be the “Birdwatch” feature available for the public in the final form, but we are expecting it to be rolling out soon. It is also sure that Twitter is not going to release this feature before the US election since it is still in its early development.

Twitter has always been serious about making a safe and user-friendly environment. We cannot yet judge the impact of this upcoming feature, but it can certainly be seen as another big step by Twitter to stick to its commitments.

Source:-   Upcoming “Birdwatch” Feature by Twitter

 

Steps to Create Your Social Media Content

In today’s digital landscape, social media plays a vital role to establish your brand’s online presence. You need a reliable social media strategy to accomplish the objectives of your brands. In this article, we will mention a step-by-step guide you can follow to create your social media content.

Set goals for your content

Before setting your goal, you must be aware of what you want to achieve? A better understanding of your objectives empowers you to make a solid social media strategy. With goals and KPIs in place, you can easily measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts.

Know your target audience

Knowing your target audience helps you in delivering your content in the right place. A targeted approach gives you better results than approaching a wider audience.

Know the perfect time to post

Knowing the time when your audience is most active helps you to engage with your audience better. Sharing your content at the right time helps you in increasing the level of your engagement significantly. You can check the perfect time to post by diving into the insights of your social media analytics.

Choose the appropriate social media platform

You don’t have to build your brand’s online presence on every social media platform. Depending on the nature of your business, you can put effort and resources on the platform where your target audience is present. Facebook is an effective platform for both B2B and B2C businesses. For your B2B business needs, LinkedIn is a perfect platform. For your e-commerce business, you can work on building a solid Pinterest strategy. Twitter is an ideal choice if you are into a customer service business. There are also plenty of alternatives you can search for your social media marketing needs.

Plan your social media content

Once you have selected the perfect platform for your brand, now start working on your social media content, you will put up on these platforms. While making your social media content, make sure it reflects your brand’s message, your products, and services along with some informative content. A perfect balance is required between promotional content and informative content. Too much promotional content can harm your engagement in the long term, and the excessive amount of informative content will not help you in creating enough brand awareness among your target audience.

Create a content calendar

Once you are ready with your content, you need to set up a content calendar that you can follow to stay consistent with your social media channels. Creating a content calendar helps you to stay focussed and on track to achieve your social media objectives.

Publish your content

Publishing your content on various social media channels can be a very time-consuming task, and that is why marketers prefer to schedule their content in advance. Planning your content will help you in saving a lot of time and enable you to post your content when your target audience is online. Publishing your content at the right time is very crucial for your social media presence and your brand’s engagement.

Analyze and measure the performance

Once you have posted your content at the right time, you need to track your content’s performance. Analyzing and measuring the performance of your content helps you in taking effective measures to fill the gap between your objectives and your current social media position. You can track your content’s performance by looking at the insights of your social media channels.

Conclusion

To get live and impactful results, you need a reliable social media strategy. Random and inconsistent posting on your social media channels will not do any good to enhance your online presence. Make sure your social media channels drive sales and inquiries rather than just likes and comments. You can follow the steps mentioned above to create a strong social media strategy and to achieve your objectives.

Source:-  Steps to Create Your Social Media Content

 

Use These Steps If You Have Not been Able to Use Snapchat on Your Phone

Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms. Millions of users across the world use it to share photos and videos with their friends and to stay connected with the world. Snapchat is a pretty easy and smooth platform to use but recently there have been a lot of complaints that users have not been able to use it properly and facing some glitches. If you are among those users who are experiencing issues with Snapchat, then we have got you covered in this article, we are going to tell you easy steps to make Snapchat work smoothly in your phone again. Let’s scroll down.

If Snapchat is not working on your phone, then the very first thing that you need to do is to check if it is working for everyone else. If it is not working for other users as well all over the world or in a particular region, it means that Snapchat is down. There have been various incidents when these popular social media apps are down. Different websites will provide you information about an app being down. If you are doubtful about the information provided by third-party websites, you can visit the official Twitter handle of Snapchat. Snapchat provides the latest information about Snapchat outages and how long it will take for them to fix it. There is no way to use Snapchat if it is down. However, if Snapchat is functioning well everywhere else and it’s just you who is not able to use it properly then you might need to take some steps to make it function on your phone.

Restarting your Snapchat app is the first thing you should try doing if it is not working. Sometimes there might be some glitches or RAM issues that do not let you function your app smoothly. Restarting the app might resolve such issues. However, if the issue persists, then try logging out from your Snapchat account and log in again. This process will result in resyncing your local snap with the server and that may fix the problem.

There are regular updates on app stores for Snapchat. If you have not been able to use Snapchat properly then you should check your app store if there is any new update for Snapchat. Installing the update might make the app function as usual.

An internet connection is the most important to use Snapchat. Before starting to use the app, you should make sure that you are connected to the internet. However, staying connected to the internet is not enough. You should also check that your internet is providing you enough upload and download speed to handle the data on Snapchat. You might not be able to use Snapchat if your internet is very slow. Snapchat may not also work if you are using VPNs. Make sure that you have disabled the VPNs while using Snapchat.

If your internet connection is strong enough and other apps are working then there might be some issues with the network permissions. We recommend you to visit the app settings on your phone and check the permissions. If there is a network usage permission missing, then you should enable it and restart the app.

If you have been facing regular glitches while using Snapchat then there may be chances that the app has downloaded some corrupted files. To resolve this issue, visit Snapchat in the app settings and clear cache files. This will not delete any of your important data or snaps so you don’t have to be worried about using this step.

If there is some other technical issue, then you can try rebooting and restarting your phone. This step will most probably resolve any technical issue which you are facing with the app. If the issue is still not resolved, then you can contact the Snapchat support team via Twitter or phone or mail. Their expert team will look into the issue and resolve it quickly for you.

If you have not been able to use Snapchat properly, in this article we have provided you the steps which should help in resolving the issues. Have a good time snapping!!

Source:-  Use Snapchat on Your Phone