Making the Most of Emoji’s in Your Social Media Strategy
Remember emoticons? Originally pioneered by Japanese computer users, these character-derived creations were the internet’s and texting’s primary way to convey emotion. As technology improved, the Japanese were once again on the cutting edge of the overlap of emotions and technology when emoji were first introduced in the late 1990s. However, since Apple introduced them to the iPhone, nothing has been the same.
And the stats bear out this paradigm shift. In 2015, according to Socialbakers, 59% of the top 500 brands included emojis in Tweets and 40% of them used emojis in Facebook posts. In another study looking at brands using emojis, Appboy reported that there was a 777% increase in the use of emojis in branded campaigns. And there’s good reason for so many brands to being experimenting with emojis; 92% of the online population has used emojis at least once, so it’s safe to say that the vast majority of users will understand your company’s use of emojis.
While emojis are generally seen as something goofy to do online, they actually serve a pretty essential role in providing an emotional context for online communication. By using emojis, it becomes easier to understand the motivation of the user’s statement. So should your brand be using emojis?
Like any online trend, no matter how widespread it is, you should first and foremost look to your users themselves and see how they interact online and whether they regularly use emojis. From there, see which emojis would be on-brand for you and make sure to take a look at online emoji dictionaries, like Emojipedia to ensure you don’t use an incorrect or potentially harmful emoji.
Once you’ve answered the above questions and determined if your audience and brand would benefit from the use of emojis, do your homework and see how other brands are using them. Brands like Domino’s have deftly utilized the emoji equivalent of low-hanging fruit, the pizza emoji, asking their online customers to order from them through Twitter. Compare their efforts with those of Chevrolet who released an entire press release written in emojis. While the campaign was met with a good deal of confusion, it also increased brand engagement on Twitter by 18x and gained massive social media coverage, demonstrating that thinking out of the box does well with emojis, as long as you have a strong understand of internet behavior.
So while some people in your office might dismiss emojis as a fad or a cheap attempt at making older brands relevant in 2016, point to the popular adoption of the symbols and make an informed case as to how emojis can enhance your brand’s online presence.
