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Should You Use Emojis in Your Brand’s Marketing? Brand 🔥

Should You Use Emojis in Your Brand’s Marketing?

Susan Hamilton
Mar 29 2017
Written by Susan Hamilton

By Sarah Lutz, Public Relations Intern

The use of emojis has grown exponentially in the past few years 📈. Emojis have become such a big part of popular culture that it’s understandable why companies big and small have adopted them in their marketing. The question is no longer “can you use emojis?”, but rather “is it right for your brand?”

We’re taking to Twitter to look at the brands that do it better than the rest. As a matter of fact, Twitter knows how popular emojis are on its platform:


Coordinate It With Your Content
Old Navy shines in this tweet by matching emojis to its image. The pineapple and sunglasses plays with seasonality and keeps the message light-hearted.


Let The Emoji Speak For You
Target does an excellent job creating a tweet that says what it needs to say without any actual copy. Consisting of only a mention, hashtag and link to a campaign-specific GIF, Target gets right to the point. Bonus points for picking an infrequently used, but perfectly relevant emoji.


Give It Value
You’ve likely heard of this next one. In 2015, Domino’s rolled out its “AnyWare” ordering system, allowing users to order pizza by simply mentioning Domino’s and including a 🕠in a tweet. It has since expanded to a number of devices and technologies, but it all began with a simple emoji.

 

Google has also adopted this capability briefly. Although somewhat less useful and efficient than speeding up your pizza order, you were able to tweet Google an emoji and get corresponding search results.


Keep It Tasteful
We don’t have to remind you to be responsible when it comes to the content your brand shares on social media. There are many examples of brands using emojis tastelessly and, overall, poorly, resulting in follower losses, firings and bad impressions. For example, Goldman Sachs’ “millennial” tweet”, the Houston Rockets’ “emoji violence” tweet or the Clinton campaign’s failed solicitation for emojis in the “student loan debt” tweet.

Outside of social media, you can also find emojis in email subject lines, on billboards, in commercials—virtually, everywhere. With widespread acceptance and more than 1,000 emojis, your options certainly are not limited. 

Additional Reading:

  1. Emojis Make Brands Fun, Relatable – eMarketer
  2. The Deeper Meaning of Emojis – Buffer
  3. How Consumers Feel About Branded Emojis – Contently
  4. The Art of Emoji Marketing – HubSpot
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