Emojis have given us a new way to express ourselves and bring emotion to the words we type. Adding a smiley face or a thumbs up at the end of a message can give more context to a message or a post and help you be better understood. In recent years, emojis have become much more complex than the basic punctuation smiley faces of the past. If the only smileys that you know are 
then, it’s time to modernize your emoji game and make the change to when you’re using emojis in social media marketing.
Using emojis in social media marketing can be hugely beneficial. Effective marketing revolves around establishing a connection with your target audience and speaking the same language as they do. Just because this language is more symbolic than formal, it doesn’t make it any less important. In fact, when you consider that including social emojis in your Tweets can increase engagement by 25.4% and on Facebook they can increase the number of likes you get by 57%, Using emojis in social media marketing is more important than ever. However, there can be pitfalls in using emojis in social media marketing, especially if you are unfamiliar with how to use them naturally.
Using Emojis In Social Media Marketing Correctly 
Contextual emoji usage mistakes can spell disaster for an otherwise well-conceived social media marketing plan. 
Nothing is worse than using these symbols incorrectly or in a laughable way. The wrong approach can end up backfiring, which can make your company appear out-of-touch with its customers. Below, we have put together a short guide to using emojis in social media marketing to help you and your team avoid any major faux pas.
With the right advice and some actionable strategies to using emojis in social media marketing campaigns, you can learn how to use emojis to your advantage. 
Why Use Emojis? 
Several statistics and reports highlight how emojis can make a real difference for your company or website in many ways. With over 10 billion emojis sent every day, there must be something to this phenomenon! For example, using emojis has been shown to boost engagement of communications if conducted appropriately. Including emojis in email subject lines, Instagram captions, and direct messages are all great ways of capturing the elusive attention of your target audience.
Use Emojis Correctly
Above all, if you are going to be using emojis in social media marketing strategies, use them correctly and appropriately. If you have any doubts about whether your usage is correct, it is probably better to simply back away from using it.
There are plenty of examples where emoji usage backfires on a company after inappropriate use. For example, since emojis typically add levity to a situation, using them in the context of a somber or serious message is in bad taste, as in the example from Hillary Clinton below. In a tweet about a serious topic, like student loan debt, asking for answers in emoji form, is not the best tactic.
Since emojis are also intended to complement the real (textual) message of what you are trying to say, they should also be used naturally. For example, many of the more common emojis are representations of human facial expressions. Considering what face you might make while saying your message aloud is a good way to imagine what emoji is appropriate in a given context.
Emojis As A Flourish Not A Foundation
Using emojis in social media marketing is meant to bring a stylistic flourish to highlight your content or social media messaging. Unless you have a great deal of experience in using emojis successfully, stick to a minimal quantity. Using too many at once generally confuses what the point you want to make and can distract the attention of your audience from receiving the message.
Ultimately, emojis help you to humanize your content and make it more relatable to a modern audience. Every business nowadays, from major companies and corporations to small-time startups have used emojis successfully.Is it your time to implement them into your own digital marketing strategy?
Create Your Own Emojis
One excellent method of capturing attention and increasing engagement through using emojis in social media marketing is to create your own variants that represent key aspects of your brand and its message. This can take a little more time and effort on the part of your visual design team, but the payoff can be well worth it if it properly executed. Many political campaigns and NGOs, for example, have taken full advantage of this awareness-boosting technique.
In one marketing campaign, the World Wildlife Foundation created seventeen emojis, which represented a number of animals whose populations are close to extinction levels. While the message was somber, the effect was profound. Visual impressions of animals created an emotional impact that would be difficult to capture via text in the same way. Users shared these emojis rapidly which drew attention to the campaign and increased its visibility.
By creating your own set of emojis, you open the door to users sharing and spreading these emojis throughout the social media environment. In effect, the investment you make into the creation of these emojis can pay off exponentially in terms of attention and engagement. The viral potential of well-conceived emoji creation is something that should be considered in every social media strategy.
Could a creative Emoji save your marketing? Just maybe! 
Emojis On Instagram 
Instagram, in particular, offers a ripe opportunity for using emojis. On Instagram, nearly 50% of all comments and captions contain emojis. Indeed, many of these comments are composed simply of a single or small set of emojis.
Given these points, it makes sense to speak in the language of most of the platform’s users when attempting to engage with your audience. For your company page on Instagram, consider using emojis by adding them to your bio, your calls-to-action, and each of your comments.
The same points outlined above apply to other social media platforms too, however. Steer clear of cryptic and confusing messages that do not make sense and are not contextually appropriate.
Do Not Delay, Experiment With Emojis Today
It might seem silly or strange to be using emojis in a social media marketingin a professional context, but the statistics do not lie! It can dramatically help in humanizing your brand and pay off greatly in terms of increased audience engagement.Look for sources of specific emojis that maximize engagement, such as the ones listed here.
Withcareful planning of a social media emoji strategy along with insights developed from analytical research, you can help humanize your brand and set your business to benefit in many ways. Give us a call at Mikesell Digital Consulting today and let us help you to elevate your digital marketing efforts by using emojis in your social media marketing strategy.
