Move over, country flags. Emojis are taking over the world one cultural identity at a time. For proof fly over to the Nordic country of Finland.
The WSJ reports that a couple of months ago Finland’s government proposed emojis, that’s right emojis, to be used worldwide in representation of the country and its peeps.
A sauna, a pair of woolen socks, a heavy metal headbanger, and woman power were the images suggested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Finland.
It was up to the Unicode Consortium to determine which emoji would best represent an entire people. The winners? Woolen socks and a sauna emojis.
What this really means is that emojis are far more than just silly texting imagery. They are cultural icons and useful across the globe. Just as emojis allow countries to represent their culture, emojis also humanize your brand.
The Power of Emojis
If you are not sure whether emojis are worthwhile, consider that 92 percent of the internet has used an emoji at least once.
Among businesses the Top 500 brands like McDonald’s and Apple, nearly 60 percent use emojis on Twitter and 40 percent use them on Facebook content, according to Social Baker.
Emojis are powerful pictures, but why?
Emoticons and Marketing Goals
Photos, videos and infographics are the forefathers of emojis. We’ve known the super strength that images have online with web users.
Everyone wants to be able to gather as much knowledge and information at Superman speed, and images do this. Think about it.
What is quicker, a emoji series of Santa Clauses, presents and Christmas trees, or the spelled out phrase, “Wishing you have a merry Christmas and that you get everything you asked for on this joyous holiday!”
You can look at an emoji and get a feeling within a blink of an eye, much faster than if you read through the content describing that emotion. It’s little wonder that emojis are raging around the world.
Emojis allow your users to save time while getting a full scale emotion when viewing your content.
Emojis for Content Marketing
So how do you translate these effective blips into your content marketing approach? Start by understand their purpose. Emojis are replacing those internet slang phrases like LOL to improve communication.
According to Clickz, however, emojis go a step further by speeding up communication and making it easier for senders to be understood.
These are the flying capes of content creation for web-based businesses by getting your content absorbed by as many people as possible, as fast as feasible.
However, if you aren’t careful you can make some emoji errors. Here are some useful tips:
- Know what an emoji means culturally before using it to avoid e-faux paus.
- Become familiar with Emojipedia so you can find the best emojis for your brand; it will help you avoid overusing the most common and oft ignored emojis. Yes, we are looking at you Smiley Face.
- Think of emojis as the forms of art they are so to create a cohesive graphic out of multiple emojis. In other words don’t use different sets of emoji stickers with different color palates and designs in one massive content spread. It’ll look piece-meal.
Also identify with what the best businesses are doing with emojis.
HubSpot has a great list of the top brands emoji-izing it. You can also boost your emoji understanding by attending the Content Marketing Conference 2017.
Join your fellow marketers, strategists and an exciting number of industry leaders to learn from the experts on how to capitalize on the superhero strengths of emojis.