UPDATED 8/4/2020
5 years ago there was a milestone in a social media marketing and emoji history. You might not think a new taco emoji is all that big of a deal now, but in 2015, it was a huge deal, especially to Taco Bell. The fast-food chain launched a social marketing blitz upon the little graphic’s debut.
Emoji Marketing Begins
When the long-awaited taco emoji launched, Taco Bell announced that its creative agency had created 600 pieces of unique content, all of which would eventually be posted to ta.co, the chain’s recently revamped site. In order to see the content, users had to tweet the taco emoji paired with another emoji and tag the brand’s handle. They’d then automatically receive a picture or a GIF mashing the two together. For example, a combination of the taco and a smiley face got a taco wearing sunglasses.
This was the start of a trend that continues to be a huge part of social media marketing: emoji marketing. Taco Bell was not the only one taking advantage of the ideographs’/proto-language’s marketing potential back in the bygone days of 2015. Dove also launched an emoji marketing campaign, releasing an app that expanded users’ emoji collections with emojis of curly-haired women.
They’re not the pioneers of emoji marketing, either. Dell used emoji marketing to hype its back-to-school sales. Ford used emojis to promote the latest Focus model. Domino’s even invested in new technology that allows people to tweet a pizza emoji and get a pizza delivered to them.
These companies and others’ use of emojis, gifs, and other social media content has led to a whole new field of social media marketing available here in 2020.
Emojis Today
Today, emojis are tracked as easily as tweets and can increase the engagement, likes, and shares of content almost effortlessly. So how you use this new marketing segment to your advantage? Well, here are a few tips to get you started!
- Research: Make sure you know what kind of emojis your audience is using. And whether they would help or hinder your business. If you specialize in senior care, it might not be appropriate. But if you’re main customer base is teenagers and kids, then you’re in luck.
- Context: Make sure your emoji choices leave the right message. Don’t be like mom whop texts a “crying with laughter” emoji with a message about grandma dying. You’re emojis need to make sense and they need to make your audience more interested in what you’re doing. You may even want to create android emoji or an apple emoji.
- Do not overuse emojis. No one will spend days trying to decode a tweet written only in emojis. Even the creator of emojis uses their words.
If used correctly emojis can be a huge asset to your marketing plan and help you humanize your business and better connect with your audience. Just don’t let it get to your head. =)