The Effect of Emojis in Content
From grinning faces, winking faces, and star eyes to piles of poo, eggplants, and peaches, there are so many emojis to use, more than 3,500, in fact. Depending on the context, combination, and platform, the meanings of these communicative images can be significantly different.
What started as a way to be more emotive in instant messages and texts transformed into a kind of image alphabet to supplement just about any type of written communication or content.
People’s enduring use of emojis got our writers at Ethos Copywriting asking, “What part do these pictograms play in content marketing?” To answer that question, we review the history of emojis, their place in the world of advertising, and why they could be beneficial to your brand’s content strategy.
A Brief History of Emojis
The word “emoji” derives from the combination of three Chinese characters (絵文字) used in Japanese writing (also known as Kanji):
絵 meaning “picture”
文字 meaning “character”
In essence, emojis are pictograms; an image icon representing a place, person, animal, thing, or object. However, the history behind the creation of emojis is somewhat complicated.
Many users have claimed that emojis were first created by NTT DoCoMo’s interface designer Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, with NTT being short for “Nippon Telegraph and Telephone” and DoCoMo an abbreviation for “do communications over the mobile network.” However, evidence supports that emojis originated from the Japanese phone carrier SoftBank in 1997.
SoftBank’s 1997 set of 90 total emojis consisted of black and white pixelated images, whereas Shigetaka Kurita’s set of 176 emojis had the same pixelated style but included color. Over the years, emoticons also rose in popularity among platforms such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Gmail, and Microsoft Network (MSN) Messenger. Emoticons are representations of faces or objects using keyboard characters and are not the same as emojis.
In a 2008 iOS update, Apple released its first set of emojis to phone carriers in Japan; the rest of the world could only access and use emojis by downloading a separate application on their phone. In 2011, Apple integrated emojis into all keyboards, making them available for all to use.
From 2011 onward, Apple has made numerous updates to the emoji keyboard, such as:
Options for skin tone
Removal of or modifications made to existing emojis that users have perceived as harmful
Inclusion of same-sex couples
Representation for those who identify as gender-neutral
Emojis in Content Marketing
Choosing whether or not you want to include emojis in your content marketing strategy can be difficult. When it comes to writing blog posts, there are no character or word limits, so you can better flesh out your ideas and concepts with good descriptions, research, and explanations. But when it comes to social media, clear and concise communication can be challenging.
On platforms such as Twitter, writing and posting a tweet is limited to 280 characters. To make the most of their limited character count, marketers often use emojis to show intent, add meaning, and set the tone of their message. What makes communication with emojis more complicated is that they have multiple meanings. In 2019, Facebook and Instagram banned the use of the “eggplant’ and “peach” emoji due to their suggestive elements. However, they did not take action upon the isolated use of those emojis.
Instead, Instagram told the New York Post that content “will only be removed from Facebook and Instagram if it contains a sexual emoji alongside an implicit or indirect ask for nude imagery, sex or sexual partners, or sex chat conversations.”
What’s more, because of copyright and the desire to be unique, emojis may appear differently across platforms. When it comes to Apple vs. Android emojis, the individual companies must create emojis that look similar to one another to ensure no guesswork or miscommunication.
If you are skeptical about using emojis in your content, read on to learn how emojis can make your brand stand out in two key ways:
1. Humanizes Your Brand
Because emojis are so widely used in communication today, they may bring more relatability and personality to your content. A string of emojis can often stand in place of a written sentence as well, and, for some, the addition of an emoji at any place in a sentence can serve as a better indication of the writer’s tone. Where words fail, pictures may speak volumes.
2. Engages Your Audience
Emojis can be a valuable tool in capturing a viewer’s attention. For example, instead of creating a traditional, black-and-white bulleted list, a writer of a post or blog could substitute a bullet for a colorful but relevant emoji. Emojis are also great for emphasizing headlines and calling attention to important links or other information, especially when it comes to newsletters. Sprout Social determined that emails using emojis to emphasize their campaigns saw an increase in open rates.
WordStream conducted a study that used the same written content in two different tweets, but only one tweet included emojis. As a result, the study found that the tweet with emojis had a “25.4 percent higher engagement and a 22.2 percent lower cost per engagement.”
3. Permits Better Communication
In an interview with CBC News Canada, Jason Boyd, an associate professor at Ryerson University, has stated that “visual icons like emojis function as a convenient shorthand that minimizes the time and effort required to communicate.” Currently, 80 percent of business professionals use text to communicate with their clients and other employees, and the use of emojis can break language barriers due to their universality and ability to minimize the likelihood of miscommunication.
The ✍️ Word
While emojis have a time and place for their usage, and you must convey the correct meaning, they can be used as tone indicators and even emphasize the message you are trying to get across. However, if you are unsure if emojis can be beneficial to your content or need assistance defining your brand and its tone, contact Ethos Copywriting, your go-to content marketing agency for superior results.