Is Your Campaign Having an Emoji-ional Effect on Your Audience?

Panda face, winking smiley, cocktail glass, or clapping hands – emojis seem to be getting everywhere these days. Are you a fan or left wondering what all the fuss is about?

Fan or not, emojis are now increasingly being used to enhance communications and attract followers and shares on twitter, Facebook, chat applications, text and email.

Facebook Polls recently launched, with the added option of including emojis as answers to generate more interest.  The enhanced poll option provides another way for brands to generate more attention in the News Feed, with polls proving popular in Facebook Live Streams.

For World Emoji Day, the BBC delivered its news headlines in emojis. According to the broadcaster, a new emoji proposed by a nurse at University College London Hospital of a mother and baby is just one of 56 emojis that have been created this year. As of June 2017 2,666 emojis had been agreed by The Unicode Consortium, who decide on which new emoji characters should be introduced.

Brands are using emojis as part of their digital PR and marketing campaigns. For instance, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) integrated emojis into their #EndangeredEmoji Twitter campaign in aid of saving animals from extinction. They created 17 emojis for endangered animals and encouraged users to donate 10 pence every time they retweeted one.

Dominos introduced a ‘tweet to order’ option with the use of a pizza emoji. They reduced the time it takes to order to five seconds, making the purchasing process for the customers simpler.

Including emojis in digital PR campaigns can help grab audience attention as well as helping them relate to your brand in a more fun and emotional way. However, it’s important to understand which platforms your audience is using to connect, consume and share and provide engaging, relevant content to really help you stand out from the crowd. Emojis aren’t for everyone or every occasion, but they are becoming an increasingly important part of communication – and it’s hard to ignore them!