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Today let’s talk about marketing communication and emojis and how and why to use them as part of your marketing.
First, I think it’s good to explore where did they come from, what are they all about, why are they suddenly being used everywhere; AND why you should consider using them in your marketing?
The Emoji Concept Isn’t New
Now, it’s not uncommon for people to communicate in pictures as well as text. You only need to think about pictograms from years ago, which have always been part of the human experience of how we express our feelings, our emotions, and how we communicate.
I remember years ago, I went to Egypt on holiday and went into one of the pyramids and saw all the amazing hieroglyphics; of course, that was a way that people communicated so they used text and they used imagery.
Now, the first smiley emojis appeared on message boards in the early to mid-’90s, but they really came to fruition through a Japanese guy called Shigetaka Kurita.
He came up with the concept of the emoji, and he worked for a Japanese cell/mobile company. This happened in 1999, and those were the first emojis. He came up with 176 emojis that then started to be used on mobile phones.
They were something novel. It was something innovative, and they started to take off.
Now apparently, there are around about 3,000 different emojis that you can get hold of. I’m going to share some places where you can find them as well. We went from having a couple of hundred through to now we have 3,000 emojis.
Contrary to popular belief, the word “emoji” does not come from emotion. It comes from a Japanese word that means picture and letter. They combined the two words, even though emojis are very good at expressing emotion, and that’s the whole point of talking about them today when it comes to marketing.
The Increasing Popularity of Emojis
Over a period of about, I don’t know, 10, 15 years, emojis started to increase in popularity, and, of course, that was aligned with smartphone usage. Then, of course, they appeared on keyboards to the point where in 2015, the emoji actually appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary for the first time.
I think it came out that emoji was the most popular word or voted the most popular word in 2015.
Who knew?
Anyhow, that is the journey, and, of course, if you consider how we now live in a digital environment more so than we have ever done and what’s happened over the last few years with the pandemic that people are using their smartphones to communicate.
We have Millennials/Gen Y, and we have Gen Z, and both of these groups communicate online and via email as their preferred choice.
I love them both, but they can be a tad ‘lazy’ when it comes to picking up the phone!
As a general rule, they often will communicate via emojis, and that is something that, whether we like it or not, or whether we agree with it or not, it is now part of our environment. It’s part of how we communicate. It’s part of how other people express themselves.
Emojis Can Warm Up a Conversation
Emojis are a great way of actually saving brain power sometimes in how you communicate, or you’re sending a text, or you’re sending an email, and it can be slightly cold.
Emojis are a way to enrich the communication piece.
Sometimes it also helps to clarify and strengthen what we are saying, so that is one of the many benefits of emojis in how you communicate.
There are several benefits to using emojis in your marketing. As with anything, anything that’s overdone loses its impact. You also have to think about your customer Avatar, who you want to reach out to, and whether will they work with that group.
Emojis= A Universal Language
A great thing about emojis is they are a universal language. With digital marketing, you can reach just about anybody now online, and they could be from a different country, and you can use an emoji, and everyone understands the laughing emoji; everyone understands the annoyed emoji.
They really can bridge a communication gap.
Also, when you use them as a writer, I never thought I’d say this, but they can make your communication clearer with regard to the intentionality of what you’re saying.
Of course, emojis humanise your brand; your brand is all about connecting with people and communicating who you are and what you do. By using them, you most certainly connect with people at a different level and in a different way.
If you come back to our Avatar, understanding your Avatar and their use of emojis will then help you to work out which ones you could use and what difference that could make.
Now it’s quite common, and it’s a well-known fact that emojis definitely drive up audience engagement; It’s such a pity that our email provider does not have them as something I can use in emails, but they most certainly do improve engagement on social posts.
Are you listening, Keap? 😂
It’s something to consider that when you are posting on social media, could you make your communication, particularly from a personal branding point of view, communicate and improve the level of emotion in what you were saying because people really do respond to emotion.
[Fact: Always remember, people buy on emotion. They justify their purchase logically afterwards.]
Remember, a lot of us are visually referenced. If you are seeing a big block of text on a post on LinkedIn, it might not be as welcoming for you to read.
Whereas if there’s a couple of emojis there, you’re going to get a sense of, uhm, what is this talking about? It really draws the eye because you can use different emojis.
You can shorten your communication.
You can make it really punchy, really clear, and people get it. Using a ✔using a few thumbs up, 👍👍 using one of my favourite ones is a woman holding a hand up 🙋♀️🙋♀️.
Doing all of these different things can make a difference for you.
Where Can You Access Emojis?
Now, where do you find emojis?
All the social platforms have them. If you’re on LinkedIn there’s not a huge number on LinkedIn, but if you’re on LinkedIn, it will automatically give you emojis to use. Exactly the same with Facebook.
If you are a Windows user, hit the Window key and full stop, and that will bring up a set of emojis for you. If you’re a Mac user, again, I think it’s Control–Command–Space, something like that, that you press, and it will come up.
There’s a great website as well called Emojipedia. If you just go to emojipedia.org, you can find the emojis that you want to use there.
To be honest, as with most things in life, just go and Google it because, with new up-and-coming rising trends, there are always multiple options for you appearing all the time, so just go and Google best emoji websites.
Something I would say to you is if you are going to use them, use similar ones, so rather than always doing random emojis, give people a sense of you and your brand.
I mentioned the fact that we often put the hand up, the woman’s hand up, the male hand up 🙋♂️🙋♀️, and we have ticks ✔✔, and we have thumbs up 👍 and we have thumbs down 👇.
Use a pattern of emojis so people get to understand you and your brand and how you’re communicating.
So where could you start using emojis in your marketing?
Thanks,
Denise
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