To emoji or not to emoji? 🤔
You’re probably in one of two camps: emoji lover or emoji avoider.
Mostly, this would be relative to age and access. Younger generations have grown up with this kind of technology and use it pretty freely, while older generations still prefer an air of formality and forgo them in preference of politeness and properness. Don’t have access to technology such as smartphones and laptops? You’d likely not use or understand their popularity or usage.
What about emoji use in business? Should you use emojis in marketing? Simply, yes. It would come down to common sense and using them sparingly enough to not be subconsciously creating a new pictorial language. (Which, in a way, emojis already are.)
Considering your audience when using emojis is key. Are your clients conservative and traditional? They may not appreciate the casualness of your overt smiley faces. Modern companies may not mind as much but realising what you’re communicating and thinking about whether it’s appropriate is your best option.
Emojis can add personality and humour to social media posts, email marketing (eDMs), and general branding. For example, here at Hotglue, we could use emojis to visually describe aspects of our business: social media, advertising and production. 📱📈🎥
There are also specific times of the year where emoji use in eDMs and on social media can boost engagement and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Studies have shown that a handful of the love based emojis work better on Valentine’s Day than others. (Psst! It’s the 💋 that works best!) Christmas emojis like the tree, stars and present (🎄💫🎁) are likely to generate festive enthusiasm in December, and the chick in the egg is always popular around Easter! 🐣
Interestingly, research has been done which shows preferred emojis across the globe. Here in Australia, we love the 👍🏼—really not a surprise! There are even emojis that are perceived differently from country to country. The ‘Hugging Face’ icon (🤗) translates as a shrug in some places and a hug in others. (Personally, I read it as a sassy “Hellooooo, are you there?” or a sarcastic/patronising “mmkay”.)
Only until recently, Google did not allow emojis in any SEO metadata (Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)). Now, you can add in an emoji to the title of your article (like we have here) and also input it into the SEO title. You can also hashtag emojis on Instagram to further broaden your post’s scope: i.e. # 🥑.
Emojis also economise the spacing that you have to write your message to your customer. For example, think of an eDM. When someone subscribes to your mailing list and receives an email, the title is what will draw them in. If this is too long, they will be served with the dreaded three little dots…
Emojis often replace words and doing so can make a customer feel as though something may be more personalised or exclusive. Something like “Social Media News That We Think You’ll ❤️” replaces the need for other potentially longer words or phrases.
Emoji etiquette comes down to common sense, but using the trial and error method could also help figure out whether they are effective for your brand. Test out using emojis in eDMs and if you see poor results, try without the next time. You may see a difference to confirm whether it is your brand’s best practice or not. An important point to remember is that if a customer does not have the emoji keyboard or at least the most updated one, they will merely see this: ▢.
Definitely not as grabbing as the 😃 that you intended.
Information sourced from here.