Importance of using emojis in digital marketing
By: Ivana Bosak
Tags: Digital Marketing, Emoji Marketing, Emoji, Social Media, Digital Communication

Photo by Kelvin Yan on Unsplash

By being present in every form of digital communication, Emojis have become a language of the digital era. According to some researches, 92% of all Internet users use Emojis daily. In fact, ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, more popular as 😂, was the Oxford Word of the Year in 2015. But what is the importance of emojis in digital marketing?

Emojis improve Engagement

Larry Kim, a founder, and CEO of MobileMonkey says that posts with emojis can increase engagement on Social Media. His studies show that emojis can generate a 25.4% increase in engagement on Twitter, and 17% higher interaction rates on Instagram.

However, it is not that easy. According to research by YouGov, 58% of consumers think marketers are trying too hard with using emojis in their campaigns.

How to prevent that?

Before implementing emojis into your content, you should know your audience. If your brand is international, do some research and make sure you use emojis that are not offensive in other cultures. It is important to choose the right emoji, that fits the brand and the context. If the emoji is not relevant, do not use it.

EXTRA TIP: Know when to stop!

Emojis help you humanize your brand

Sometimes, it might get hard to communicate in the digital world. The lack of face-to-face interactions, as well as lack of body language and facial expressions, often cause misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the messages brands share online. By using the right emojis, we can create an emotional context in our online communication, as well as give a brand its identity and personality.

However, always make sure you check if emoji you use is compatible with the devices your audience uses. You don’t want questing marks to replace your emojis, do you?

Emojis make your brand memorable

Emojis help your messages stick with your audience. How is that possible? Well, humans are visual beings and it is easier for our brains to understand images. Studies suggest that people remember 20% of what they read and 80% of what they see. So, the more visual your marketing message can be, the more likely it is to have an impact on your audience.

Furthermore, humans mimic each other’s facial expressions and emotions when we are talking in person. The same thing happens online. When we look at the emojis, the same parts of the brain are activated as when we look at a real human face.

Examples of brands that use emojis successfully

Taco Bell

After a year-long campaign, Taco Bell finally got a taco emoji added to the emoji keyboard. In the campaign, Taco Bell started a petition to “release a taco emoji into the wild.” They got nearly 33,000 signatures and Taco Bell launched a social campaign With the Taco Emoji Engine. Everything people needed to do was to tweet @tacobell with a taco emoji plus any other emoji, and they’d instantly receive a unique photo, gif or, illustration in response.

Domino’s

„Now you can order Domino’s by tweeting 🍕“ is an example of one of the most popular emoji campaigns ever. Even though customers had to first set up a Domino’s account, choose their favorite pizza, and then link it to their Twitter — before tweeting their order, it was still a very successful campaign.

Coca-Cola

Fun fact: Coca-Cola was the first company to pay Twitter for custom emoji. For its emoji campaign, Coca-Cola used Twitter’s Hashflags, also known as Twitter’s Custom Emojis. In the form of a paid ad on Twitter, an emoji of two Coke bottles toasting shows up in a tweet when users share the hashtag #ShareaCoke. Other brands that used Twitter’s Hashflags were Burger King and Victoria’s Secret.

So, what do you think? Would you use emojis in your marketing campaigns?