Everyone has definitely texted a friend or a co-worker “😀”? Did you know that you have used a form of LANGUAGE that has been compared to Egyptian Hieroglyphics? Billions of people do that every day without knowing.
Both Emojis and Hieroglyphics are not considered languages, but they are writing systems. Thus, pictograms are strong symbols that display how people think, communicate, and speak. For instance, “😂” conveys sarcasm, surprise, and teasing, besides extreme hilarity.
If you don’t know the history, Emojis have started as Unicode symbols that after that gained increasing popularity of mobiles in Japan within the 1990s. In 30 years, emojis have crossed over the important information and the lack of emotions that words have. So, let’s be honest, they are very important even for marketers who need to attract people in a way that looks fresh and trendy.
How Emojis and Marketing are Connected
Emojis work as little engagement boosters, tweets that use them tend to get about 25% more engagement. Regarding nowadays’ social media, brands have to evaluate if the emoji use is right for their posts. As per Adobe Emoji Trend Report, around 50% of respondents would be more likely to follow a brand if they use emojis in their marketing, and 44% would even buy products that were advertised using emojis.
Indeed, the key to seamlessly speaking the emoji language exists in understanding how to use emojis properly as emotional and intellectual shorthand. Chevrolet seems to miss this when they released an emoji-only media release in 2015. This release was very hard to understand and widely mocked, and it turned out to be an example of how you avoid overusing emojis. Less is more here.
So, here lies the essential challenge for marketers, it’s how to create intuitive digital storytelling by using emojis. If you made an unfortunate move, it can make people type “#SMH.” However, using emojis is a simple way of communicating with people in emails, posts on social media, related channels, and texts. The trick here is to be moderate while using them. Or, they will end up being misunderstood or not conveying the right intention.
How to use emojis in marketing confidently
You don’t have to stay away from using emojis, at all. We are in an era that emoji was named in Oxford Dictionaries the ‘word’ of the year, digital pictograms gained their position in the business. Actually, we are all cavemen somehow, as we do prefer visual storytelling platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. You just have to use some tips to avoid overusing emojis.
Use trending emojis
You have to assume that your audience is familiar with some popular emojis. If you don’t know these emojis, check websites that track the real-time emojis to know which emoji is the most used around the world. After that, you can choose a few emojis that will make sense for your content to use. Keep in mind not to build your content around emojis. But think about them as spices that give extra meaning and character to your core context.
Don’t Pick Emojis Randomly
You could never convey promoting content written in the lorem ipsum saved for site sandboxes (Fun truth: Lorem ipsum is not Latin. 😲). So, be purposeful when choosing email advertising emojis. If you don’t know how emoji could be read, forget about it. Despite the fact that emojis in email subjects have been appeared to give 25% higher rates, irrelevant ones can do the opposite. The best way is to pick one ideal emoji for your content than many irrelevant emojis that debilitate the content understanding.
Right-click to selectively replace words with emojis
Emojis are used to improve the content you write. In some situations, they also can be used instead of some words, particularly when you cannot find any word to deliver the meaning or the tone you want. For instance, if you are sharing a photo of your pup in a puddle, you may caption it “It’s raining 🐱 and 🐶 out here!” You just have to just avoid replacing a lot of words with emojis unless it’s a good reason to do that. However, try to punctuate the sentence with one or two emojis at the end. So,e social media platforms enable emoji searches, you can gain even more engagement than you expect if you make it properly.
So, in the end, you need to understand the importance of using emojis, but try to use them properly without overusing or irrelevant use. In order to avoid misunderstanding and ridiculing. Try to know which emoji is the best suits your context and don’t ever replace a word with an emoji unless it will add more meaning and tone to the sentence, and has a good reason.
