You might not have heard yet, but the Oxford Dictionaries announced that the word of the year is….drums please… This one! 
Wait?! What?! This was my exact same reaction! They selected the “face with tears of joy” emoji as the word of the year and this is a first!. And a big one!
for the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph: 😂, officially called the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, though you may know it by other names. There were other strong contenders from a range of fields, outlined below, but 😂 was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015. Oxford Dictionaries
I know that there are 3 kind of people out there: The ones who think that this is the kind of joke you want to do to create something viral (let me assure you that it’s not), the ones who don’t care about anything and the ones who think just like I do – this is BIG NEWS!
If Oxford Dictionaries recognizes the power of a visual in a word/text – this should be important for your next year’s marketing strategy.
I have 3 big reasons to tell you why this is BIG – looking at it through a marketing perspective:
- Emojis show us the importance of visual marketing
- Emojis represent a new language – the millennials
- Emojis mean time
1. Visual Marketing is getting stronger with emojis
If you are a follower of my blog, you already know that I’m betting my money on visual marketing. Yeah, I know, visual marketing is just a simple part of content marketing – but I also know that every content published somewhere needs a hook to get your audience’s attention. The visual part is the hook that you need.
I’m not saying that you should start using emojis in your next marketing strategy. I’m not even saying that you need to understand why millennials are using this kind of content – I’m just saying that you need to look a little bit closer at the importance of visual marketing.
With this announcement, the Oxford Dictionaries suggests that we should consider using the visual language.
2. The today’s millennials will be the tomorrow’s parents
Think about this – If you communicate for a brand and your audience is segmented in baby boomers, generation X and millennials, you should think about the future. Because the today’s millennials will grow up, they will have families and jobs and and if you want them to still be your audience, you need to speak the same language.
I’m not stating that you should start using emojis in your Tweets or in your blog posts. But what I’m saying is that you should look at what other platforms are popular among today’s millennials. What kind of apps they have in their smartphones and what kind of social media platforms they are using to talk with their friends.
3. Emojis mean time
For me and many other people that are using the digital platforms every day, is easier to use an emoji to tell our feeling, than writing down the words. Micro content tricks like emojis and .GIFs are time savers (and sometimes grammar savers too).
How many times did you use an emoji when you laughed so hard, when you were upset, or just to say a simple “thank you” or “it’s ok”? Exactly.
I personally use emojis a lot on my Instagram account, even if I’m commenting to somebody or just replying. It’s more convenient for me to use an emoji. Saves time and energy.
Time is an important resource for every marketer out there. We struggle with time when we want to stay on top with the news, when we want to get connected or communicate with our audience.
I am aware that the “gurus” are saying “You should invest more time!”, but let me ask you something. If you only have 24 hours/day to work, relax, have fun, sleep, there is no more time to be invested!
Instead of investing more time, you should use your time smarter than you competition. How? By listening to your audience and thinking forward.
Conclusion
Give more importance to the visual.
Use a visual language to talk an international one.
Time is an important resource for your business.
And if you don’t trust me with this, you should listen what an entrepreneur who build up a company from 3M$ to a 60M$ business in just five years, has to say about this.
Now back to you, how a marketer should look at this topic?
Emoji | Shutterstock
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