Emojis: a thing we never thought we needed and now we can’t live without ‘em. Well, that’s a little dramatic but you catch our drift. Emojis are EVERYWHERE: texting, email, candy, giant stuffed pillows, movies, and now a dedicated World Emoji Day!
The reality is that emojis have transformed the way we communicate. Every day over 700 million emojis are used on Facebook posts. And by mid-2015, half of all comments on Instagram included an emoji.
While most of the time emojis are used for fun, there are strategic ways to use them, especially in advertising and marketing. They can help convey a message, be attention-grabbing, assist with branding and increase engagement.
This only works if you use the correct emojis based on the context and also if it’s appropriate for your brand. For brands that have a serious or professional tone, the use of emojis could negatively impact business. The last thing you want is for the use of an emoji to be the wrong tone, conflict with the brand, or even worse, offend potential customers and alienate current ones.
A few do’s and don’ts when it comes to using emojis:
Use Emojis In An Email Subject Line
● It’s been proven to increase open and response rates when used sparingly
● Test sending emails to different customer types: new vs existing
Use Emojis In Digital Ads
● This leads to increased engagement, clicks, and conversions
● Use in the description/headline of your ads to convey the message of your copy or image/video
● Placement of the emoji will draw the reader’s attention to the most important/relevant copy
● Encourage user interaction through the use of emojis
● Use as a substitution for bullet points
Use Emojis In Push Notifications
● Underused but proven to be highly effective
● Provokes emotion and gives the user a pleasant experience
● Ability to send a shorter text with the same messaging
Use Emojis In SEO In Rich Snippets
● Click-through rate will increase and search relevancy can be improved
● Use exact match emojis for your brand. For example, if you sell pizza, use the pizza emoji or if you have a nail salon, use the nail polish emoji
Use Too Many Emojis… Yes, We Said It!
● Overuse of emojis can hurt your success in several ways:
● Your emails could be flagged as spam and not reach your desired audience
● You could potentially appear unprofessional
● Your overuse could convey unclear or incorrect messaging
With more and more emojis being added all the time, it can be hard to keep up with what’s available. One of the biggest problems with emojis is determining what they actually stand for. Some emojis can mean more than one thing so it’s extremely important to know the actual context as well as the “trendy” meanings.
Thankfully there is an Emojipedia available online with helpful features and suggestions:
● Search every emoji by name, category, or platform
● Copy and paste each emoji for quick access
● Reference a Google 5-year trend chart to see the relevancy of your emoji
● Discover suggested similar emojis
IN SHORT
The point of the emoji is to fill emotional cues that are lacking from typed sentences. Working a smiley face, heart, or a thumbs up into your advertising is one of the easiest ways to gain an emotional connection with your current and potential customers. Whether you’re running paid ads, email campaigns, push notifications, or working on SEO all can greatly benefit from the use of emojis.
Just remember to make it clear, make it concise, but they’re emojis… so make it fun! ????
