It has been shown that adding emojis to tweets increases engagement by 25.4 percent compared to messages without emoji, and using them in Facebook posts can increase your Likes by 57 percent and your comments and shares by 33 percent.

With these numbers, it’s no surprise that emojis appear regularly in online marketing campaigns. But as with any new digital development, businesses need to know the right way to incorporate emoji marketing into their social strategy.

Emoji marketing tips for social media success

Know the meaning behind emoji

One of the biggest mistakes a brand can make on social media when using emoji is to misuse them. Don’t put that eggplant emoji in a company tweet if you don’t know definitely what are you doing.

You want to position your brand as an authority and knowledge holder. Don’t risk your company’s reputation by sending an emoji that doesn’t mean what you think it is. A major fear of many social media marketers is the lack of communication, so be sure to keep up with the latest emoji developments and meanings.

great resource EmojipediaNot only as an emoji dictionary, but also sharing the latest developments and news in the emoji world. For example, Emojipedia published it when iOS 10 came out. an article this showed the new emojis and how they will appear on other software platforms.

Use emoji for real-time interaction and reactive messaging

While long, pre-composed emoji messages can sometimes miss the mark, a well-timed post could benefit from an emoji… or 10.

Brands have started using emoji to show their customers the human side of business, so there’s no reason not to add emojis to a Tweet or Instagram post the way you would a text message (when appropriate). If the situation calls for it, you can get creative with emoji art even if the current emoji keyboard doesn’t have a corresponding symbol for your brand:

Avoid encrypted messages

You shouldn’t assume that all your customers are fluent speakers, as the language of emoji crosses cultural barriers. Emoji-specific copy, fun quiz or a interesting post, may not be the best idea for a press release. This is how Chevrolet announced the 2016 Cruze model inside #ChevyGoesEmoji offer:

To their credit, the company followed its release decoded explanation and a series of YouTube videos titled Emoji AcademyFocusing on educating the public on the art of emoji decryption.

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While the element of intrigue is certainly in favor of some companies, most people probably wouldn’t take the time to translate something just written in emoji. If you can’t make your encoded message part of a larger campaign, stick with shorter messages or equal parts text and emoji pairings.

Remember, social media only works if you can convey a message clearly. Don’t let your audience be confused by your emoji use.

Use custom emoji strategically

Marketing campaigns featuring custom-made emoji and emoji keyboards have become increasingly popular over the past few years, but only a few have caught attention beyond the initial curiosity at launch. Big brands like IKEA and Foot Locker have given us emojis depicting Allen keys and fancy sneakers, but are they so missing from our everyday emoji interactions after all?

Image via IKEA

Unless your message is somewhere like “Taking our dachshund to IKEA for Meatballs” (although personally this sounds like a dream day to me), it’s unlikely that people will continue to use custom emoji keyboards on a regular basis – which is why it’s such a special design questionable result for it to work.

If you decide to create your own custom emoji instead of inventing new icons for fun, why not do it for a good cause? Get the WWF, who created a set of custom emojis to represent endangered animal species.

#EndangeredEmoji icons would come with a specific set of instructions: When a user Tweeted one of the custom emojis, a donation was made to save the real-life counterpart of the animal. In addition to being cute, this type of custom emoji campaign also gives your audience a reason to continue using emojis in the future.

Looking for an easy way to enter custom emoji? Try Bitmoji. These personalized cartoon avatars are free to make and can be used to express a multitude of emotions, expressions and situations. The best way to use Bitmoji to customize your business is to base it on a real person, such as your CEO or social media manager.

After downloading the app and adding the Bitmoji keyboard to your phone, you can easily add Bitmoji to a tweet or send it via Facebook Messenger. But the easiest way to incorporate Bitmoji into your social presence is to take advantage of the Bitmoji Snapchat integration. You can add a Bitmoji to your Snap by selecting the sticky note icon from the menu (just like adding a regular emoji).

You can also add a Bitmoji to a custom geofilter you created for your business. Make sure your Bitmoji account is linked to your Snapchat account and you’ll be able to add one when setting up your geofilter on Snapchat’s website.

Create an interactive experience

You don’t need to create your own custom emoji keyboard to get people talking. Consider why brands choose to include emojis in their marketing campaigns: These emojis are familiar to most mobile users who use them in their daily communications.

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Incorporate this habit and make your target audience part of the campaign. For example, the US beverage brand Tampico made a social media game This requires users to guess a winning emoji combination from 24 choices.

Participants were asked to comment on the company’s social media channels with their emoji predictions and add the campaign hashtag. #TampicoEmojiball. After the campaign was closed, the increased user engagement made it clear that Tampico is one of the biggest winners.

It doesn’t take many emojis to win an award or win the love of your audience or customers. Domino’s Order Emoji campaign focused on one emoji: the pizza slice. Tweeting the emoji on Domino’s official account along with the hashtag #EasyOrder will allow users to place an order within seconds.

The campaign combined the popularity of emojis with a new way to present their products to customers. If you want people to talk about your brand using emojis, first give them a good reason to talk to you.

Know the appropriate time and place for emoji

As with text messaging, a lot can be lost in translation when using emoji in professional communication. To ensure that your use of emojis won’t feel like you’re playing a digital ‘telephone’ game, just make sure you know the meaning (as mentioned above) and context of your emoji.

Sending an email to your company’s CEO requesting a serious meeting? Maybe you don’t want to use the winking face emoji. Is your company CEO your younger brother? Now this emoji might be appropriate.

An important factor to consider here is demographic information. Who your audience is will have a huge impact on whether you use emojis in your messages. I would never imply that “millennials” (a word that sounds like a nail on a chalkboard to me) are the only ones who will respond well to your brand’s use of emoji, but you’ll have to do some audience research and testing to figure it out. just who are you talking to

So, if you’re an email marketer and considering using emoji in one of your subject lines, give it a try for a week. For the next week, don’t use any emoji in the subject lines or body of your email. Which test had higher open and click rates?

The same test model can be used on social media. Pay attention to your engagement levels and reactions from your audience, with and without emojis. You can then use this information to guide future social media campaigns and strategies.

A world without emojis is not a world I want to be a part of. To get the most out of your emoji marketing campaign, heed the advice here and get some ? to your target audience and online community.

Take your social media skills to the next level with free online tutorials and videos from Moyens I/O Academy.

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With files from Sarah Dawley.