This might surprise you, but according to Quintly, the use of emojis on Instagram increases engagement by a huge 48%. They found that posts using emojis on Instagram have an interaction rate of 2.21% and posts without have 1.77%.

And, according to stats shared by casualastronaut.com “Using emojis in Facebook posts increases likes by 57%, comments by 33% and shares by 33%.”

Now that might not seem like a lot, but when you consider that there are more than 2 billion smartphone users throughout the world, sending more than 41.5 billion messages and 6 billion emojis every single day (source digiday.com), that’s a good percentage.  

People just love emojis, they’re fun and engaging and a great way to communicate online. Emojis add that personal touch from smiley faces, to hearts, to sad faces to thumbs up – they convey a whole raft of emotions in a quick and easy to understand way.

Obviously, not every business will want to use emojis as it’s not appropriate for everyone, such as solicitors and funeral parlours, but they can help make your brand more fun.

However, this doesn’t mean suddenly using shed loads of emojis in every post you do on social media, they need to be used in moderation. If you use too many, your brand could be seen as unprofessional or too jokey, so use them sparingly and appropriately.

How to use emojis to fit your brand 

Every business has a different brand – a different way of saying things (tone of voice) and if you use emojis, they need to fit your brand. For example if your business is fun, bright and colourful, and known for being more lighthearted, you can use the laughing face,😂 heart eyes face,😍 smiley face 😀etc. But if your brand is more serious, you might just want to use a thumbs up or something less ‘in your face’.

Make a list

Now, I love a list and this is going to be a super fun list to compile! Go through all the emojis and make a list of the ones that will fit your brand. You’ll be surprised at what you find that will fit with the products or services your offer. Once you have your list, you can then decide what kind of posts they can be used in. Then you have a stock you can use and you’ll know exactly where and when to use them. For example, if you bake cakes, there are several emojis you could use – if you do events, there’s a party popper emoji. You get the idea!  The main thing is to have fun with them and find ones that shout your brand.

Where else can you use emojis?

Emojis aren’t just for social media posts – you can also use them in your bio to emphasise what you do.

Blog posts

If you write a blog, you can use them in your blog posts – this is something I hadn’t thought about to be honest! Again, it’s about using them sparingly, but they can be great to emphasise a point you’re making.

Email or online newsletter

Also, use them in your email subject lines. There have been several studies done on the use of emojis in email subject lines and open rate. Most saw at least a 56% increase in open rate when an emoji was used in the subject line.

A further study by Econsultancy.com found that using a snowman emoji in the email subject line during the holiday season, increased the open rate by 66%. 🙌

Obviously once again, different emojis will work differently for different businesses, so it’s worth testing them out to see which ones work best for your business.  

🌟Bullet points – so long as the subject you’re talking about isn’t deadly serious, you can use emojis instead of bullet points to highlight the content of each bullet point. This will draw the eye of the reader to each bullet.

🌟In the opening of your email – instead of just saying, ‘Good morning’ or ‘Hello😃’ add a smiley emoji – it can help start the email on a happy, positive note.

🌟Use in blocks of text – if you have a long paragraph where you’re explaining something that could appear dull to the eyes of your readers and you want to make it stand out more, you can use emojis within that text to break it up a bit. Using emojis can make your writing easier to scan and to digest lots of content.

Emojis in close up and sign off – You can use an emoji at the end of your final paragraph, once you’ve summed up the content of your email. For example, ‘I hope this has helped you to understand XXXXXXX. Contact me if you need any further help’.

Also, test this out with different sign offs such as ‘Thank you🙏’ or ‘Kind regards🥰’ adding an emoji after the sign off. Which emoji you use will depend on if the email is fun or more serious.

Conclusion

As a lot of the emojis are the equivalent of human faces, the brain tends to behave the same way as it does when it looks at a real face. And this is why emoji engagement can help your social media posts, blogs or emails. It makes your particular piece more relatable.

Studies have shown that emojis make people feel happy, as it’s unconsciously seen as personal interaction.

Whichever way you look at it, I’ve been surprised by this research and the various studies, but it does make perfect sense. I’ve used too many in this blog post, as I’ve used them for explanation purposes! I hope it’s helped you see how many different ways you can use emojis!

Give it a go – you might have a lovely surprise! I’d love to know how you get on with them.  😘 😘