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You can add a lot of personality to your SMS campaigns with a single emoji, but it’s imperative to understand the emoji's meaning and use it correctly. This article lists 20 of the most popular emojis—including the most used emoji of 2023.
When you send an MMS using Age Texting, you have the option to include emojis in the text portion. However, keep in mind that each emoji accounts for 70 characters so it is best to use them in moderation. Most importantly, be mindful that not every emoji has an obvious or literal meaning, so it can be easy to confuse them or embarrass yourself by using the wrong one.
We have listed 20 of the top emoji icons in this article. If you're texting a friend or coworker or creating an SMS Marketing campaign for your customers, refer to this guide before hitting "Send".
What is an emoji?
An emoji is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation.[1]
Emoji Meanings in Text Campaigns
1. Smiling Face
A classic smiley. A yellow face with a modest smile, rosy cheeks, and soft, closed eyes. Many platforms, including Apple, feature relaxed eyebrows. Conveys a wide range of warm, positive feelings, including love, happiness, and gratitude.
2. Tears of Joy
Face with Tears of Joy is an emoji that represents a crying with laughter facial expression. While it is broadly referred to as an emoji, since it is used to demonstrate emotion, it is also referred to as an emoticon.
3. Rolling on the Floor Laughing
The tilt of the yellow face in this emoji indicates that whatever has been said is not just funny, but it is so funny that it has you rolling on the floor laughing so hysterically that you are crying happy tears. So ROFL, friends.
A yellow face with simple, open eyes and puckered lips giving a kiss. Commonly conveys sentiments of love and affection.
5. Smiling Face with Heart Eyes
A yellow face with an open smile, sometimes showing teeth, and red, cartoon-styled hearts for eyes. Often conveys enthusiastic feelings of love, infatuation, and adoration, e.g., I love/am in love with this person or thing.
6. Flushed Face Smiley
A yellow face with raised eyebrows, a small, closed mouth, wide, white eyes staring straight ahead, and blushing cheeks. Intended to depict such feelings as embarrassment, but meaning very widely varies. Other senses include flattery, surprise, disbelief, admiration, affection, and excitement.
7. Winking Face
A yellow face with a slight smile or open mouth shown winking, usually its left eye. May signal a joke, flirtation, hidden meaning, or general positivity. Tone varies, including playful, affectionate, suggestive, or ironic.
8. Face with Rolling Eyes
A yellow face with a small, closed mouth, flat or frowning, rolling its large, white eyes upwards. As with the gesture of an eyeroll, commonly conveys moderate disdain, disapproval, frustration, or boredom. Tone varies, including playful, sassy, resentful, and sarcastic, as if saying Yeah, whatever.
9. Partying Face
A yellow face with a party hat blowing a party horn as confetti floats around its head. Used for celebrating joyous occasions (such as New Year's Eve or World Emoji Day) and enjoying good times more generally. Consider using this emoji or birthday cake emoji when sending automated birthday texts to your customers.
10. Holiday-related Emojis
Consider including fun emojis that represent the holiday season to add some fun to your MMS marketing campaigns.
11. Clinking Glasses
Two flutes of champagne or sparkling wine being clinked together, as done at a celebratory or convivial toast (“Cheers!”). Samsung’s design suggests two glasses of white wine. Some platforms include stylized links to mark the clinking. See also Clinking Beer Mugs—and Bottle with Popping Cork for a refill.
If your upscale restaurant is hosting a wine tasting event, consider including this emoji to add some fun to the message.
12. Dress / Woman Dancing
If you are creating an MMS marketing campaign for your boutique, including fun emojis pertaining to featured clothing items can help connect with your subscribers.
13. Waving Hand
A hand waving most commonly used to say “hello” or “goodbye”. Including this emoji is a fun way to greet your subscribers.
14. Backhand Index Pointing Right
Index finger pointing to the right. Consider using this emoji to draw attention to your call-to-action/ website where your subscribers can shop or learn more.
15. Mobile Phone Emoji
The mobile phone emoji is commonly used when referring to mobile phones, technology, and communication. It is commonly used to promote a company's app.
16. Check Mark Button
A heavy check mark in a text message means something is approved or confirmed. You might consider using this emoji in your text message as a bullet point.
17. Star-eyes Emoji
The star eyes emoji represents excitement, fascination, or speechlessness. Best suited for discounts and promotional SMS campaigns.
18. Announcement
If you’re sending announcements to your subscribers, include an emoji of a megaphone to easily grab their concentration towards your text message.
19. Party Popper
The party popper emoji expresses the feeling of surprise, celebration, achievement, and happiness. This emoji can be used in a variety of SMS marketing use cases including automated birthday and first order anniversary text messages.
20. Thumbs Up
This emoji remains a popular means of quickly and earnestly expressing approval. The thumbs up emoji is ideal to use when sending appreciation text messages to your staff. It also indicates agreement, approval, encouragement, or assurance, an equivalent to "Great job!”.
Face with Tears of Joy 😂
A yellow face with a big grin, uplifted eyebrows, and smiling eyes, each shedding a tear from laughing so hard. Widely used to show something is funny or pleasing.
Benefits of using Emojis in MMS Marketing Campaigns
1. Increased Engagement
Emojis can help boost engagement by adding visual interest and relay the tone of receiving a text message from a friend. They can also be used to break up a longer text message, making it easier to read.
2. Strengthen Brand Recognition
Emojis can help your brand stand out. Find an emoji that ties in with your industry and include it in your messaging. For example—a coffee shop or C-store SMS campaign message might include a cup of coffee emoji; a pizza shop SMS marketing campaign message might include a slice of pizza emoji; a sports store SMS marketing campaign might include a basketball, football, or soccer ball emoji—or a combination of them.
3. Connect with Your Audience
Emojis are a great way to add emotion and personality to a message and help you connect with your subscribers.
4. Increase Open and Click-Through Rates
Emojis in a text message can help boost CTR [2] by providing a visual element that draws attention and catches the eye of the subscriber. Studies have shown that including emojis in SMS marketing messages can lead to higher open and click-through rates than messages that don’t include emojis.
5. Increased conversions and sales
Emojis help add a human touch to the message and punctuate text.
While emojis are a great way to add some fun and personality to your business text messages, overusing them can distract from the actual intention of your message. Understand the emoji meanings in your text campaigns. Sometimes, emojis can come across as unprofessional, so be sure to use them with good sense, and professionally.
Americans Across All Age Groups Love Emojis
People across all generations showed interest in emojis compared to gifs and screenshots.
34.6% of Gen Zers and 32.2% of millennials preferred emojis. Surprisingly, 44.5% of Gen Xers and 42% of Boomers favored it.
Source: SMSCountry.com
Recommended website to find emojis: https://getemoji.com
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