#MakeInIndia is First Non-US Based Brand to Get Twitter Emoji

Twitter announced today that the Indian government’s #MakeInIndia campaign is the first non-US brand to launch its own Twitter emoji to a worldwide audience. As a key highlight of this government campaign, an emoji of a black lion on an orange background, a version of the national program's official logo, will now appear next to the #MakeInIndia hashtag in any Tweet worldwide. The #MakeInIndia emoji symbolizes the success of the brand campaign on Twitter with nearly 500 million impressions this year to promote India as a great place for foreign direct investment to transform the country into a global manufacturing hub.

The Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, also visited Twitter’s global headquarters in San Francisco where she was hosted by senior company executives, including Shailesh Rao, Vice President of Asia Pacific, Latin America and Emerging Markets, and Parminder Singh, Managing Director of India, Southeast Asia and Middle East North Africa, to commemorate the global launch of the #MakeInIndia emoji. During her official visit, the Minister met with Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, to discuss the importance of India as a strategic growth market and how Twitter’s platform can be used to promote the country’s brand to the rest of the world (currently the world’s 7th most valuable nation brand according to Brand Finance).

Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, the #MakeInIndia program is one of the top global initiatives for the Indian government in 2015. The #MakeInIndia brand campaign on Twitter had over 300 million impressions and nearly 24 million engagements in August and September this year. To-date, the US, Japan and the UK are the top three markets for the global #MakeInIndia conversation on Twitter with 95% neutral-to-positive sentiment, and positive Tweets three times higher than negative ones. The #MakeInIndia brand campaign also has higher engagement rates and lower cost per engagement than global campaign benchmarks on Twitter.

Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, said: “The ‘Make In India’ story is increasingly resonating with business leaders around the world and Twitter has proven to be a valuable and effective channel to help us tell our highly-engaging story to an influential global audience. We’ve seen tangible results with the “Make in India” and “Ease of Doing Business” programmes that have made India the #1 investment destination worldwide and Twitter is one of the best ways we can shine a bright light on India’s vibrant potential as a global manufacturing hub.”

Shailesh Rao, Twitter’s Vice President of Asia Pacific, Latin America and Emerging Markets, said: The “Make in India” programme is both visionary and wide-reaching and it will provide long-term benefits in the years ahead as more manufacturing investments will transform the economy and create millions of jobs for the Indian workforce. As we are a platform for the world’s leaders to interact and communicate with each other every day, we are honoured to be a trusted partner for the Indian government to reach decision-makers worldwide and to contribute to the economic renaissance of India.”

Meanwhile, the @MakeInIndia official Twitter account has more than 700,000 followers since its inception a little over a year ago. The top three most shared Tweets for @MakeInIndia are: