July 17th – Today is the fifth annual world emoji day, July 17th was chosen because it is displayed on the iOS calendar emoji. Here’s all you need to know…
The word emoji comes from Japanese e (meaning “Picture”) and moji (meaning “character). Emojis derived from emoticons (A pictorial representation using characters e.g. “:p” “:/” ) The first ever emoji was created in 1999 in Japan by Shigetaka Kurita. Emojis became popular extremely quickly in Japan and were later added to Apple devices in 2011 and Android in 2013, and soon became a large part of worldwide culture. Using emojis can let us show emotions, that we might not be able to express through words. They do say “An emoji is worth a thousand words”.
Using Emojis On Social Media
Social media have also jumped on the bandwagon with emojis. With Facebook adding more reactions to join the “like” button such as “wow” and “angry”. Twitter, the home of the hashtag now adds emojis onto popular hashtags, for example during the world cup the hashtag #worldcup had a world cup emoji trophy next to it. Using emojis in Tweets has shown to increase engagement by 2.4%.
Don’t force an emoji, if there isn’t a relevant emoji, don’t use one at all.
Don’t overdo it, only use emojis where relevant. Try and stick to three or less emojis in one post.
Make sure you know the meaning of the emoji you are going to use. Some have meanings that aren’t obvious, so be careful. Emojipedia is a good source to use to make sure that you are using the fitting emoji.
