Emojis made their debut on Japanese cell phones in 1999, and this ever-growing collection of cute faces, animals, snacks, objects, and various other symbols have become a staple feature of modern-day electronic communication. Adding a relevant emoji to a tweet, Instagram post, or blog is as easy as pressing a button. However, some marketers still seem uncertain about how to utilize them, and often overlook including them within their social media efforts. In fact, studies have shown that followers are way more likely to click on your content if you toss in an emoji or two. Let’s take a closer look at the most popular emojis on the internet, and how sprinkling a few in your posts will help to increase your click through rate.
What’s The Deal With Emojis?
What does it matter if you cap off a social media post with an emoji? More than you’d think: If you’ve spent any time researching what kinds of social media content garner the most attention over the past few years, then you’d know that has been and still is all about anything and everything visual. Videos, photos, and memes may be your first thought when you think of “visual” social media content, but studies prove that people are up to 33% more likely to comment and share, and 57% more likely to drop a Like on a Facebook post sporting a few emojis. That’s not even mentioning the invaluable 25.4% increase in engagement seen brands use emojis in their tweets!
Emoji All-Stars & How to Use Them
Emojis are released in waves by the Unicode Consortium, a group of technology legends such as Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, and Apple, who regularly vote on the symbols that should be included in the next batch. For instance, Unicode 11 will launch in summer of 2018, and it will contain a fresh bunch of emojis including Lobster, Teddy Bear, Goggles, Parrot, and a DNA Strand. Surely some of the new emojis will see a spike in popularity in the short term, however some emojis are simply timeless.
You will always want to include emojis in your social media posts and blog articles that fit the context of your overall message, such as ⛄and ☔ if you were to note the “crazy weather” you’re experiencing outside of the office. On the other hand, it’s incredibly easy to include some of the most commonly used emojis alongside your latest update. Here are the most popular emojis on iPhones in the United States. ????
While the hottest emojis swap places along the top twenty or so, it’s easy to spot a clear-cut trend: hearts and expressive face emojis are consistently well-liked across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media platform. If you’re on the fence about what emojis to go with, think of the facial expression that best describes your message, or if it fits your branding, consider dotting a post with one of the many colorful heart emojis currently available! ????
Emojis on Twitter
As I’ve mentioned earlier, it has been shown that tweets featuring emojis have a whopping 25.4% higher engagement rate than those that don’t, and while I absolutely recommend considering selecting emojis that fit the context of your tweet, how would you feel if I told you that there is a cheat-sheet to find out which emojis are hot on Twitter at this very moment? If you’re considering fine-tuning your tweets to be as trendy as possible, you will thank me for emojitracker; a tool that tracks the usage of emojis as soon as a tweet is published. Neat, huh?
Before you start adding emojis to your posts, you want to make sure you know what they mean and if there are any negative connotations associated with them. Emojipedia is a great resource for learning about popular emojis and what they represent.
Emojis turn heads in the visually focused realm of social media, and if your brand isn’t already inserting an emoji or two in your own posts, you’re missing out on the higher levels of engagement, sharing, and liking that come with these fun little icons!