Emoji as a marketing cornerstone

Emojis have taken over a significant part of online communication, with people using them in order to express a feeling, a taste or an interest without using a long written description. It's the language on Instagram, Whatsapp,Facebook, Wechat. The term ’emoji’ has become so popular that it was named by Oxford Dictionaries as Word of the Year for 2015, which means that we were not surprised when we noticed an increase of branded messages including emojis.

It’s common for brands to attempt to be part of a trend, and some of them excel in it, but there’s always the risk of trying too hard and in no relevant context.

It’s interesting to observe the reasons that people use emojis and it seems that it’s not just about being fun and casual. In fact, people may use an emoji in order to improve online communication, to be understood, to add a sentiment, or simply to express themselves as fast as possible in the most appropriate way.

This becomes important for brands, as it may help them understand the motives behind the emoji use for their target audience and whether they should start adding them to their marketing messages.

Should your brand use emojis?

This is the advice from Tereza Litsa, from Search Engine Watch.

Emojis may help a brand add a personal element to its marketing messages and create an additional appeal to its audience, but this doesn’t mean that every case is similar.

Before you jump on the excessive use of emojis as a way to increase your relevance, you may need to consider:

• How does my target audience interact online?

• Would emojis enhance the branded message?

• Which emojis could be more relevant for my brand?

• Do I really know the meaning of the emojis I’m going to use?

• How often should I use them?

Thus, the use of emojis depends on:

• target audience

• relevance

• affinity

• frequency

and it may be adjusted depending on the set content strategy, or a particular campaign.

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