Use emojis in your marketing?
A heart ❤️ to say you love someone, and a burger 🍔 when your roommate asks what you want for dinner. Emojis have changed the way we communicate, but should you use the little symbols in your marketing?
Emojis arrived as a breath of fresh air around 2010, and since then they have become more and more common. For most of us, emojis have become a natural part of everyday communication, but many companies and businesses are still unsure whether they should use these little symbols in their marketing.
More personal in social media
Social media generally have a more informal tone than traditional marketing channels. On Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, for example, many companies can allow themselves to be more personal and verbal in the way they communicate.
Just look at the players in banking, finance and insurance. These are industries we know as formal and "stiff", but now even they use emoji. With the use of a couple of emojis, the complicated or formal message suddenly becomes a little more popular.
Can increase engagement
According to a study by WordStream, using an emoji in a tweet can increase engagement by 25% compared to tweets without emojis. Others indicate that using an emoji in a Facebook post can increase shares by 33% and reactions by 57%.
These figures will probably vary from industry to industry and from post to post. If you're unsure, why not run a test? Try some posts with emojis and some without, and check how your target group responds. This can give you a good indication of whether emojis are for you or not.
Emojis as part of a campaign
Many of the big brands have realized that emojis are here to stay, and there are many examples of emojis being used as the basis for entire campaigns.
The movie Deadpool was launched with its own emoji poster (💀💩L = Dead/poo/L)
Maybe something to inspire you?
Some rules of thumb
If you have decided, or are considering, using emojis in your marketing, you may want to be aware of a few things.
1. Everything in moderation, don't overdo it
It's important to remember that you can't indiscriminately pour on an unlimited number of emojis. This can quickly be perceived as fussy or unprofessional, and at worst can confuse the recipient so that your message doesn't come across in its entirety.
An emoji here and there is enough, and it's better to use the "less is more" mindset than to risk overdoing it.
2. Choose relevant emojis
Always think about what you want to say and who you want to say it to. The target group and message should guide your communication, even when it comes to emojis. Don't go overboard with balloons, unicorns and pizza slices just because you're used to using them yourself. Think about which emoji will suit your message and the feeling you're trying to evoke in the recipient.
3. Avoid emojis you're not sure what they mean
Not quite sure whether the little face was actually crying with joy or sorrow? What about the monkey with its fingers in front of its face, what does it actually mean? If in doubt, it's always a good idea to choose another emoji instead. And not least: Remember that people can interpret emojis in different ways. Go for the safe choice instead!
For example, choosing 🍑 and 🍆 without knowing what they are often perceived as can quickly become embarrassing!
Screenshot from emojipedia.org
4. Check emojipedia.org
A good tip is to look up the emoji on emojipedia.org. This is a lookup service where you can find all the different emojis and see what they mean, copy them into your text and check how they look on different operating systems such as Apple, Android and Windows. Really useful!
One final tip: Did you know that on the Mac you can press control + command + space at the same time to bring up a keyboard with emojis? Genius!
