Emojis first appeared in smartphone SMS threads, but now they’re everywhere. Today, you can even order lunch by tweeting an emoji. In social media marketing, it’s important to know that the most popular social media networks not only support emojis but also have entire features built around them. There are many ways brands can take advantage of these features and emojis…
Copy & Responses
The most intuitive way to use emojis is to use them in text. Captions, descriptions, comments, tweets… the possibilities are endless. But adding an emoji or two to the end of a line of text is literally what everyone is doing – how can you stand out? One way is to replace words in your text with emojis – just make sure your message doesn’t lose meaning. If you’re engaging with fans online, emojis are perfect for fun, humorous reactions. You can even drop the text all together and just use emojis to reply. It’s a fun and visual way to get a message across, and even if your list of emojis might need a little deciphering, then that can add a fun challenge to your reader.
@mikekelton ? ? ?
— Seamless (@Seamless) September 12, 2016
Instagram Profiles
Take a look at some influencers on Instagram: You’ll notice that many use emojis in their profile. Making an emoji list in your bio is also a clean, attention-grabbing way to lead your fans to check out your other social channels, sign up for a newsletter, watch your YouTube videos, and more!
Breakroom uses emojis to make a visual, organized list as their Instagram bio.
Instagram Hashtags
You probably know that hashtags are king on Instagram, but did you know that you can use emojis as hashtags too? If you’re posting a photo of food, there’s a good chance that there’s an emoji for that. Hashtags are essential to organic discovery on Instagram, so use emojis to your advantage.
Tumblr Tags
Are you on Tumblr? Then you know tags are to Tumblr as hashtags are to Instagram, meaning they are essential for content discovery. And just like Instagram, you can use emojis as Tumblr tags as well.
Snapchat
Decorate your snaps and stories with emojis. You can resize and rotate them and place them where you see fit. You can even attach them to objects if your snap is a video. Get creative!
Twitter Stickers
Twitter recently added a Stickers feature to their platform, which you can add to photos. The cool thing is, if you tap or click on a sticker, it leads to a search page where you can see how other users are using that sticker in their tweets. The best part is, almost all emojis are available at your disposal. If you’re a brand with a big budget, you can even promote your own branded stickers.
Twitter Ads Targeting
On Twitter, emojis even play a part in targeted advertising. On Twitter Ads, you can use emoji keyword targeting to “target people who have recently tweeted or engaged with tweets featuring emojis.” Emojis can be powerful in this way. For example, you can determine the sentiment of a tweet or target people who are tweeting certain food emojis.
It’s amazing to see how far emojis have come, and they’re not slowing down. The Unicode Consortium is constantly adding more emojis, and they are getting adopted by the latest operating systems. Emojis are becoming an integrated part of internet language, so if it makes sense for your brand and content, use them!
For more emoji tips, check out these other Likeable Blog posts:
- How Brands Can Communicate Through Emojis
- Brand Advice: Why Every Day Should Be Emoji Day
- Beware of These Emojis
How are you using emojis? Which tips did you find useful? Tweet me at @TheMikeyDunn! If you found this blog post useful, please share it using the social media icons below.
