Facepalm Emoji Finally Makes Its Way to Your iPhone! | K2L Blog

Drop Everything! Facepalm Emoji Finally Makes Its Way to Your iPhone!

That’s right. It’s here. It’s finally here.

No longer will you struggle to convey your trendy vegan toast topping in conversation, for the avocado emoji has at long-last landed. And it’s now iOS compatible. Yay!

At the end of October, Apple released a developer’s preview that showed off the new range of emojis. The symbols were approved as part of Unicode 9.0 back in June, and after Apple’s announcement, are now expected to arrive on your iPhone later this month.

So, what have we got?

iPhone-using emoji fans can look forward to a delightful array of new faces (and inanimate objects, of course) plus a few redesigned faces. These include a fox, a ‘shrug’, a clown (not of the creepy or killer variety), a croissant, a gorilla (which has quickly been nicknamed Harambe, because… the internet), a duck, pancakes (with syrup, not of the duck variety), a ‘fingers crossed’ and the all-important, ever-useful, universally-loved-and-understood facepalm.

Of course, there’s plenty more to choose from – a 72-strong list in fact – but these are just the ones we love most – and expect will find themselves into our future Whatsapp chats most frequently.

What about the redesigns?

They basically all look a little more real. Think more detail, plus shadows that create a realistic 3D-effect. People are actually freaking out, because the so-called ‘booty peach’ now actually looks like a real peach, and those who like a cheeky text or two (if you’ll pardon the pun) are one-down on the rude emoji front.

Experts on all-things-emoji (what a job, and btw, it’s now an officially recognised Mastermind subject) Emojipedia said: “The new art style is more bulbous, with sharp details which are beautiful. While it’s a shame to lose some of the hand-crafted details of the original set, this new 3D-style set looks like a cohesive collection for the first time the always useful shrug and face palm.”

In addition to all this exciting news, support, Emojipedia reports that the update will also include emoji professions, plus changes from the Emoji 4.0 update. This means women and men in all skin tones will appear as firefighters, judges, cooks, and scientists. No sign of any marketers yet, but alas, we live in hope. There’s also still no redheads – which lots of people are, unsurprisingly, quite unhappy about.

The rise of emoji marketing

In the last five years, emoji-use has gone through the roof. Since Apple introduced emoji support to iPhones in 2011, the cute little icons have edged their way into mainstream culture. Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2015 was the laughy cry face – or ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ to use its full name. You can even get laughy cry face cushions, as well as his pals, heart eyes, wink and sunglasses cool guy.

So naturally, as they’ve won over the hearts and minds (emojis available for both) of the whole world, the emoji language has found its way into marketing. Research shows that marketers are seeing stronger results from campaigns that include emojis within their messaging, and therefore the number of emoji marketing campaigns continues to rise.

Let’s see some stats…

  • 609% increase in the number of active customer messaging campaigns that included emoji messaging.
  • Over 800 million emoji messages sent in one month (June 2016).
  • Since June 2015, the open rates for iOS and Android push notifications containing emojis have increased by 210% and 1,063%, respectively, year over year.
  • Interestingly, conversion rates associated with emoji messaging campaigns have also increased 135%

We’ve seen it ourselves – pop an emoji in the subject header of your email and the open rates do tend to rise.

The truth about emojis… We love ‘em

Studies into how people feel about the little guys is clear – research shows widespread positive sentiments toward emojis and brands’ use of them.

In general, people love emojis. In fact, more than 64% ‘like or love’ them, compared to only 6% who dislike or hate them. And these days, we’re used to them – around 87% of us use them in our own personal text messaging.

It’s ever better news for us, or anyone else that works in marketing. One survey showed that 39% of respondents said that they found it to be ‘fun’ when brands use emojis in their outreach.

It’s time to make the most out of emoji marketing

Whatever your brand or message – yes, even you B2B sector – the popularity of emojis represents a major marketing opportunity. If you’re they’re thoughtful about the ways you incorporate emojis into your customer outreach, you could be on to a winner; wowing your audience and reinforcing your brand’s identity.

If you’re wondering how you can make the most out of emoji marketing, our team can help. We’ve already seen emailer open rates soar for a several clients thanks to a well-planned emoji or two. Get in touch, and we’ll show you how a strategically placed avocado emoji can make your marketing a little bit more amazing.
 

All image credit to: Emojipedia

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