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Best Emojis for Marketing – Introduction

Emojis have become an integral part of digital communication in the 21st century. What started in 1999 with the creation of 176 emojis by Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita has blossomed into widespread adoption across digital platforms. Today, over 90% of online populations frequently use emojis to convey emotion and connect better in messages.

For marketers, understanding emojis is critical to leverage in campaigns. Thoughtful use of emojis allows brands to grab attention quickly, appear more friendly and relatable, and drive higher engagement across social media and other channels. However, not all emojis have equal impact. Certain emojis have been statistically proven to be more effective at encouraging shares, driving clicks, and evoking reactions.

This article will explore the significance of emojis for modern digital marketing. It will present data on the most popular emojis used today along with specific emojis that generate more clicks and engagement. Successful examples of brands creatively using emojis will also be highlighted. Finally, best practices will be provided for marketers to integrate emojis into their strategy for maximized results. Let’s analyze how this pervasive visual language can be strategically optimized to connect with audiences and promote content more effectively.

Widespread Adoption of Emojis in Digital Communication

Emojis have become ubiquitous in digital communication due to their simplicity and ability to transcend language barriers. Recent surveys found that over 95% of internet users leverage emojis to visibly express emotions and better convey tone in messages. People appreciate emojis for efficiently communicating context that is otherwise difficult to portray through text alone.

For brands, emojis present an opportunity to humanize messaging and form deeper connections with audiences. When used appropriately, emojis can make content more relatable, fun, and approachable. On social platforms in particular, posts with emojis receive higher engagement in the form of reactions, comments, and shares.

According to Instagram data, posts with at least one emoji in the first comment receive on average over 25% more engagement. Thus for digital marketers, understanding optimal usage of emojis has become an essential component of strategy.

Difference Between Emojis and Emoticons

Before diving deeper into emoji usage for marketing, it’s important to distinguish emojis from emoticons.

Emoticons refer to facial expressions and emotion icons created using basic keyboard characters. For example, the smiley face 🙂 and sad face 🙁 emoticons can be typed on any keyboard.

Emojis on the other hand are actual images and symbols that visually encode meaning. The Unicode Standard which provides specifications for emojis defines them as “pictographs (pictorial symbols) that extend the traditional use of emoticons.”

Over 3,600 emojis exist today across various categories from faces and hand gestures to food, animals, landmarks and more. They can be inserted into messages on digital platforms through emoji keyboards and menus.

Brands leveraging emojis specifically for campaigns gain the benefit of the more visually engaging and expressive emoji images compared to basic text emoticons. This allows for more creativity, personalization and fun. Now let’s explore some key statistics on the use of emojis in marketing.

Statistical Significance of Emojis in Marketing

As emojis continue to become more embedded into communication norms, brands have taken notice of their impact. Recent data reveals just how important emojis have become specifically for marketing:

• According to Twitter, tweets with emojis receive 25% more engagement on average than tweets without.
• Facebook posts with emojis see comments, shares and likes increase by nearly 60% over posts without.
• A HubSpot study found Instagram posts using emojis in the first comment get 33% more likes than posts without.
• Email subject lines with emojis have close to double the open rate based on multiple studies.

The data makes it evident that emojis catch attention and inspire action across nearly all digital marketing channels. For audiences, seeing a familiar emoji activates more interest and positivity towards branded content.

Emojis essentially act as visual cues that make messaging more approachable and human. Audiences also appreciate emojis for adding personality to otherwise straightforward promotional content. This emotional connection and relatability in turn compels increased clicks, reactions and sharing.

Now let’s break down the most popular emojis used broadly across all platforms to better understand current trends.

Top 10 Most Popular Emojis Overall

With over 3,600 emojis available today and more being added, which ones reign most popular and widely used? Emojipedia, which tracks emoji usage and trends, revealed the top emojis across all platforms in 2023:

1. 👍 Thumbs Up – expresses approval or agreement
2. ❤️ Red Heart – represents love and affection
3. 😂 Face with Tears of Joy – conveys laughter and amusement
4. 🙏 Folded Hands – used for making requests, wishing, praying
5. 😭 Loudly Crying Face – expresses sadness, pain, or grief
6. 😘 Face Blowing a Kiss – sends affection, love or flirtation
7. 🥰 Smiling Face with Hearts – conveys adoration or infatuation
8. 😍 Smiling Face with Heart-Eyes – shows love struck happiness
9. 🤣 Rolling on the Floor Laughing – represents hysterical laughter
10. 👏 Clapping Hands – shows praise, applause or approval

As we can observe, the most popular emojis predominantly convey strong emotional states. Love and laughter emojis understandably lead for universal appeal and usage.

For brands though, driving engagement requires choosing more strategic emojis beyond the generic most popular ones. Let’s analyze data next on which specific emojis deliver the highest impact.

Top 10 Emojis Proven to Increase Engagement

While emojis like hearts and smileys have extremely widespread usage, they don’t necessarily translate into increased engagement for branded content. Marketing requires choosing emojis strategically based on data-driven performance specifically towards campaign goals.

HubSpot conducted an enlightening study analyzing emojis used across tens of thousands of social media posts to determine which ones drive the most likes, comments, clicks and shares.

Here are the top 10 emojis proven to boost engagement:

1. 💃 Dancer – expresses celebration or showing off dance moves
2. 🍒 Cherries – represents sweet fruity flavor
3. 🐠 Tropical Fish – upbeat aquatic creature
4. 😎 Smiling Face with Sunglasses – cool emotion, positive vibes
5. 🌤 Sun Behind Cloud – brighter outlook or forecast
6. 😍 Heart Eyes Face – conveys adoration and infatuation
7. 😭 Loudly Crying Face – depicts extreme sadness or pain
8. 💕 Two Hearts – expresses deep affection or gratitude
9. 😢 Crying Face – shows emotional sadness and hurt
10. 💓 Beating Heart – portrays excited or thrilled loving emotions

As we notice, the engagement-boosting emojis are more varied and less conventional than the broadly popular ones. Their visual specificity conveys more context allowing audiences to better understand the exact emotion implied for increased interaction. This suggests that brands should experiment with diverse emojis beyond the expected ones to generate novelty value and cut through the noise in feeds.

Let’s analyze the flip side next – which emojis achieve the highest click-through rates when used in campaigns.

Top 10 Emojis That Drive Click-Throughs

Beyond social engagement, brands also leverage emojis to boost click-through rates for campaigns across channels. Certain emojis are statistically more effective at motivating audiences to click on links and CTAs for increased traffic and conversions.

Technology company Copernica analyzed over 4 million emails to reveal which emojis get the most clicks. The results offer helpful insight for marketers on emoji selection specifically to inspire clicks.

Here are the top 10 click-driving emojis according to the research:

1. 🐙 Octopus – unique ocean creature piques curiosity
2. 🐴 Horse – majestic animal grabs attention
3. 👖 Jeans – surprising clothing items stands out
4. 🍒 Cherries – vibrant fruit drives hunger/cravings
5. 🚂 Locomotive – powerful imagery sparks interest
6. 🏳 Waving Flag – catches eyes for patriotism
7. 🌉 Bridge at Night – scenic visual creates intrigue
8. 🆓 Free Marker – universally appealing saving message
9. 👇 Hand Pointing Down – strong CTA signal for action
10. 10.🎟 Ticket – urgency to book or register

As we observe, the highest click-through emojis have highly specific and unusual emotional associations that compel attraction. By creatively incorporating emojis outside the typical favorites, brands can deliver content that piques viewer curiosity to click for more details.

Now let’s view some real world examples of brands running innovative and successful emoji campaigns.

Successful Branding Emoji Campaigns

Let’s analyze some stellar examples of brands effectively leveraging emojis creatively in their marketing campaigns:

Deadpool Branded Emoji App

To promote the 2016 film Deadpool and build buzz especially among millennials, the marketing team launched its own Deadpool Emojis app. It allowed fans to express themselves with irreverent Deadpool-themed emoji stickers in messages across platforms. The #DeadpoolEmoji hashtag also spread organically, generating millions of impressions.

Domino’s Pizza Emoji Ordering Campaign

Domino’s Australia came up with an ingenious social campaign letting people order pizza through tweets. By tweeting pizza emoji 🍕 to Domino’s handle @Dominos_AU, the company would reply asking for order details to then deliver pizza. Simple but effective.

Bud Light Skyline Emoji Campaign

Bud Light targeted over 200 cities with custom skyline emoji stickers on their bottles promoting local pride. People uploaded images across social using the skyline emojis which also linked to a contest for free beer and branded merchandise prizes.

As we’ve seen, layered usage of emojis tailored to campaigns can drive tremendous engagement and conversions in creative ways. Now let’s consolidate the key learnings into best practices for emoji marketing success.

Best Practices For Using Emojis in Marketing

Based on the research and examples covered, here are some top tips for effectively integrating emojis into marketing campaigns:

• Enhance Memorability: Using emojis makes branded messages more visually striking and emotional, leading to improved memory encodement and recall.
• Test For Optimal Emojis: Continuously experiment with a variety of emoji types and monitor performance to determine which ones best resonate with your audience and achieve goals.
• Use Emojis Judiciously: While emojis enhance content, overusing them can diminish returns and credibility so apply them thoughtfully and sparingly.
• Ensure Cross-Platform Rendering: Consider how emojis might show across different operating systems and social feeds and account for interpretation variance.
• Align With Brand Personality: Choose emojos that authentically reflect company values, culture and voice for continuity rather than arbitrarily.

Following these tips will allow brands to maximize their emoji usage for advertising and social media engagement. Although easy to implement, emojis require strategy to realise full impact.

Conclusion

As emojis continue to proliferate as a universal digital language, marketers must embrace them as an impactful tool for campaigns. Certain emojis like the heart and laughter faces enjoy widespread popularity for generic communication. However, data reveals more unconventional and niche emojis can capture attention and deliver the highest engagement.

Strategically applying emojis allows brands to creatively showcase personality to forge an emotional connection with audiences. Post copy and images alone often fail to convey context and nuance. Emojis fill this gap enabling more appealing and consumable content. Research shows posts with emojis can achieve over 25% more likes and comments and 57% higher click-through rates.

Creative usage in campaigns also generates organic growth by inspiring audience participation and sharing. As evidenced by case studies like Deadpool’s branded emoji app and Domino’s pizza emoji ordering, emojis attractively blended into messaging and calls-to-action compel reactions and conversions. Their visual stickiness also improves memory and brand perception.

This overview aimed to provide definitive guidance for marketers to recalibrate their perspective and adopt emojis based on statistical performance. By testing and tracking engagement, brands can determine their most effective emojis for given platforms and audiences. Following digital communication norms, emojis make campaigns relatable. But strategically applied emojis will set brands apart.