Folks, it’s happened. The world is complete. We finally have a taco emoji. That’s right – you can now add a taco to your dancing ladies, winking face, and coffee mug. While perhaps, you didn’t miss the taco emoji as much as some (cough, me, cough), by now you probably have your favorite emojis and emoticons for your personal texts and social media communications. But have you thought about incorporating those tiny pictures into your corporate social media posts and tweets?
Social media is a great way to not only interact with your customers, but also put your brand a step above your competition. As you approach social media strategy, interjecting emojis and emoticons into your posts can help you expose your brand in new ways.
Here are a few reasons why you should include emojis and emoticons in your brand’s social media interactions.
Gain More Likes & Followers
It’s hard to believe, but the first emoji is almost 18 years old! First created by an artist in Japan, the Japanese culture embraced them right away, while the Western world didn’t fully get on board until the evolution of mobile phones and the introduction of smartphones. Even with the short amount of time they’ve become a mainstay in our culture, they have a solid reputation for making users more likeable and popular.
A team at the University of Cambridge used a variety of metrics to determine that ‘positive emoticons can be a social media status marker.’1 In other words, using emoticons makes you more popular. The 31 million tweets and 500,000 Facebook posts that were analyzed showed there was a strong link between social media power and the use of emoticons and emojis in social media updates.
Be Viewed as More Friendly and Approachable
When you use emoticons in your business social media marketing, you’re also seen as an approachable brand. Ultimately, you’re reminding your customers and followers that you’re a team of people, rather than just a stiff brand.
In fact, a study2 showed that when experts in specific fields used emoticons, study participants viewed those experts as more competent than the experts who avoided using them. When you use emoticons, especially if your competitors are not using them, you’ll be viewed as a more competent and trustworthy brand.
Have Fun With Them But Use Them Correctly
Another study3 showed that when viewing an emoticon, the viewer reacted as they would a human face. The emoticons you use have an effect on how your customer will view you. With this in mind, you can have fun with the smiley faces, crazy faces, and confused faces, but remember the reader will most likely put that face to your brand.
Emojis and emoticons are more and more becoming aspects of our everyday culture. Whole sentences can be written solely using the little pictures. And while we don’t recommend communicating with your customers only with emojis, it can help you interact with them in a more real and authentic way.
If you’re wondering just how to interject emoticons and emojis into your Facebook posts and tweets, Seapoint Digital can help you out. We’re experts in all things social media, including the art of communicating with emojis. And don’t worry, we won’t bombard you with sentences full of emojis. Unless it’s Taco Tuesday, in which case, INSERT TACO EMOJIS IF YOU CAN.
1 https://researchswinger.org/publications/tchokni14.pdf
2 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470919.2013.873737?journalCode=psns20#.VkoUtotoMbi
3https://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/9/3/2/8/pages93286/p93286-1.php
