Emoji are the new emoticons. Remember those? With the clever placement of just a few punctuation marks, people could punctuate (pun intended) their electronic messages (e.g. email, texting, IMs) with a smile, frown, wink, or whatever other expression they could come up with. Naturally, sometimes people got too clever by half, and after a while people tried out stuff that you had no idea what the emoticon was supposed to be. Was that an expression of confusion, or does it stand for “I just ran over a weasel”?

But emoticons are so last decade … now it’s time for the emoji. Yes, that’s right; now that everyone has finally gotten the hang of using emoticons, here’s something new to deal with. That’s always the case, right? So what are emoji and should they be used in your marketing text messages?

Emoji are here to stay, and it seems they’re feeling pretty good about it

The Emoji Defined

The term comes from Japan, means “picture letter”, and consists of a small digital image or icon, a sort of emoticon on steroids, if you will. Rather than just a colon and a right-hand parenthesis to create a smiley face, it’s an actual small smiley face. It’s cute … and somewhat creepy.

Emoji come in all shapes and sizes, many of them broken down by category (e.g. people, hand gestures, symbols, etc). The major operating systems support emoji to one extent or another. That’s pretty much all you need to know about them.

Why Use Emoji In SMS Marketing?

Since emoji are the latest and greatest trend in electronic messaging, you may want to consider incorporating them if your target audiences consists of millennials and younger people. A marketing campaign incorporating emoji is one that’s most likely sending out a message aimed at youth culture.

Let’s face it, emoji are kind of silly, a superfluous little bit of flash or flair (shades of Office Space!), and not something that’s really a necessary part of any text campaign. However, they can be an entertaining flourish, perhaps punctuating the message with an easily remembered symbol and conveying a sense of fun.

When it comes to emoji, there’s one thing for sure: they are certainly better at conveying a sentiment or attitude than the old emoticons are. There’s little room for ambiguity there, and that can be a good thing for an SMS message, which has space limitations to deal with.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Emoji In SMS Marketing

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. As mentioned earlier, emoji have a connection with younger Internet users; if your SMS campaign is for, say, AARP-sponsored life insurance, an emoji may be viewed as an annoyance. As the article “Should You Use Emojis With Your Text Message Marketing?” points out, “… you might run the risk of confusing potential customers with unnecessary graphics.”

Since emoji are by their very nature a silly, frivolous bit of fluff, they have no place in a campaign that is trying to draw attention to a serious product, service, or cause. A goofy face on added to a message about an Alzheimer’s benefit just doesn’t seem right, and may even be considered trivializing the cause in question.

The other thing to beware of when it comes to using emoji is that sheer number of them out there; the question may not be whether or not to use an emoji, but rather, which particular ones are right for the campaign? Do you really want to spend extra time in trying to figure out what emoji are right for your text messages? If emoji use is a rabbit hole you intend to go down, get ready to make some choices.

There’s A Time And Place For Everything

This doesn’t mean to say that there emoji are a bad idea. Just bear in mind that introducing them will, in many people’s eyes, automatically paint the tone of your message in a certain way (skewed to a young market, and light-hearted in tone and content). Make sure you know who your audience is before incorporating emoji in your SMS text message marketing campaigns. A campaign that resonates with the audience will increase interest and make them more receptive to your call to action. If you don’t have your call to action squared away, the article “What’s Your Call To Action?” imparts some useful advice on the subject.