The emoji sees widespread usage across the world, but it has not really penetrated into the professional communications sphere. Let’s look at the pros and cons of this.

Brightly colored, cartoonish, and often humorous in nature, emojis are popular because of their range (there are hundreds of them) and also how they can be used in place of words and text in some instances. Having seen their use begin in personal communications (such as text and instant messaging), their popularity did not wane and if anything went from strength to strength. Yet having these personal and informal origins means that the emoji has a harder time integrating into the professional and office environments. Here we take a look at some examples of emojis at use.

Web Design

It is rare to come across a website that is designed with an overreliance on emoji. Rather due to their universal nature, emoji can be used as part of the design aesthetics to add a more playful feel. But we have to think about big business and Fortune 500 companies – could you imagine the likes of Pfizer advertising crucial medicine alongside emojis? This shows us that when it comes to website design, emojis have their place but they may not be commonplace

Newsletters

Some newsletter software has started to support emojis as part of their design and user interface. MailChimp for example allows users to insert emojis into the subject lines of their e-mail newsletters. These can be used for visual punctuation and to highlight the newsletter in between the other e-mails of the recipients’ inboxes. So a Christmas newsletter may have some emoji of presents within the subject line.

Press Release

In a bold move that worked well to attract attention, back in 2015 Chevrolet released a press release about a new model launching in 2016. The entire press release consisted of emojis instead of words – so this quickly turned to the wrong type of attention as many were confused and unable to read it. So much so that they followed up the press release with a decoder to finally uncover the actual words and meanings behind the emojis used. Click here to view their press release.

In summary, emojis have their place within the professional environment but their place is not common or widespread (yet)? As we can see with the likes of MailChimp, a smattering of emoji here and there can actually be a good thing; but an over-reliance on them in Chevrolet’s case can backfire. Contact the expert design team at Ireland Website Design if you would like to implement emoji into your website and online presence in a tasteful manner that can help to drive sales to your business.