You've never looked at emojis as part of your marketing strategy, have you? Emojis are not just for entertainment anymore; It is also...
You've never looked at emojis as part of your marketing strategy, have you?
Emojis are not just for entertainment anymore; It is also used to strengthen communication in the virtual environment and for people or brands to express themselves better.
Companies that realize the positive impact of emojis on consumers are increasingly including emojis in their marketing strategies. For example, in just one month, the number of emojis used by brands in marketing has approached 1 billion. 60% of 500 major brands, from McDonald's to Apple, use emojis on Twitter and 40% on Facebook.
What is Emoji? What are the Advantages of Using Emoji?
We all know emojis. Emojis are font sized; signs symbolizing concrete objects or abstract concepts or emotions. Emojis, which were first used in Japan, quickly took their place in the culture of every country after Apple introduced emoji support to iPhones in 2011.
The advantage of emojis is that they speed up communication and enable the sender to express himself better.
According to a study, the use of "emoticons", that is, signs such as ":-)" ";-)", reduces negative perception in written communication. For example,
“I will not be able to attend the meeting planned with you today because it conflicts with my internal meeting. Can you email me and let me know what I'm missing?"
“I will not be able to attend the meeting planned with you today because it conflicts with my internal meeting. Can you email me and let me know what I'm missing? :-)”
In the perception between sentences, the sentence in which the second "emoticon" is used has more power to prevent a possible negative perception.
How to Incorporate Emojis into Your Content Marketing Strategy
The high level of information consumption requires brands to reach their customers in a shorter and faster way.
Brands use emoji marketing largely by:
So, if you want to include emojis in your marketing strategy, let's see how and where you can start.
-Start slowly with emoji marketing. In a study on emoji usage, 65% of respondents think SMS or social media are the best channels for emoji marketing. You can achieve positive results by making good use of the target audience's positive perception of emojis. Instead of bombarding your target audience with content full of emojis, it would be better to limit the use of emojis in your content and start using them slowly.
-Determine the target audience you will reach with emoji. Although people participating in the research think positively about brands' use of emoji, 11% of consumers find emoji use inappropriate or childish. Therefore, when segmenting your target audience, you can determine which audience would be more appropriate to reach with emoji.
-Avoid overuse. Looking at the research, it seems that consumers really enjoy using emoji. However, keep in mind that overuse can cause exasperation and an adverse reaction in your target audience.
-Know well what an emoji means culturally. Although most emojis have almost the same meaning in every culture, some emojis can have different meanings. It will be better to find the most ideal emojis for your brand by reviewing them on Emojipedia. This will also save you from using emojis that have lost their effectiveness due to being used too much.
Examples of Brands Using Emoji
Nowadays, companies from every sector include emojis in their marketing strategies. Particularly web-based companies' use of emoji marketing allows content to reach more people and quickly. It also provides brand recognition.
With the application it developed in 2015, Domino's Pizza made ordering possible using only the pizza emoji. The emoji ordering concept developed by the brand received an award at the Cannes Lions International Creativity Festival.
The Taco Bell brand also applied to the Unicode Consortium for the recognition of the "taco" emoji on the grounds that "America wants the Taco emoji" and their campaign was successful, receiving support from 32,802 people. Emojipedia has had the taco emoji since 2015.
General Electric
For example, users who click on the "smiley face emoji" have the opportunity to watch Bill Nye's evolution video explained with the help of emojis. Similarly, by clicking on the rocket plane emoji, a visitor can learn about NASA's New Horizons Space Shuttle.
Evaluation
Although emojis have taken their place in the marketing strategies of many companies, especially in the last few years, this does not mean that this application will fit the structure of every company. Emojis are not a new marketing “tool”; It should be emphasized that it is a "communication language" that is far from formal. Therefore, always keep in mind that excessive use of emojis may cause misunderstanding or damage your brand's reputation. As we mentioned above, to a younger audience; Brands that appeal to Generation Z or companies that want to make difficult-to-understand technical topics entertaining may well use emojis. However, it would be beneficial for companies that want to maintain their serious stance to limit the use of emoji.
It is entirely up to you to decide whether to use emojis in your social media content, blog or other content you deliver to your target audience.
What do you think about using emoji? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section.
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