Twitter's quest to become a profitable business that would be used by some of the biggest brands in the world is in full swing and in a recent move, the company has introduced a new branding tool in the form of 'promoted stickers'. Twitter announced the launch in a blog post and stated that, "Starting today, brands can create and promote custom stickers for anyone on Twitter to use. A brand's stickers will be featured in the #Stickers library and offer a form of creative expression that makes a person's photos more fun and engaging. Promoted #Stickers represents a huge opportunity for brands to drive brand affinity and raise awareness of their message at scale."

It went on to explain how it will work as well, "Brands can design four or eight stickers - like accessories and other props - for users to add to their own photos. Photos with a brand's stickers are shared with all of a user's followers, allowing brands to be featured by their fans in a truly authentic way. #Stickers act as a visual hashtag, meaning that photos with your brand's sticker will be connected and discoverable to anyone who taps your brand's sticker. This allows a brand to see and engage with the people who are using their stickers in creative ways."

A report on tech website TechCrunch revealed that Pepsi is the first brand to have forayed into the new initiative, "Pepsi is the first partner on board in an undisclosed deal that allows Twitter users to plaster stickers designed by the fizzy pop company onto their photos. Doing so and posting the photo triggers a hashtag to appear inside the tweet, which makes it discoverable to Pepsi - perhaps for further promotion or competitions - and that, in turn, helps promote the brand in a different way on Twitter. That's the theory, anyway."