Emoji can be used to great effect in all sorts of communications, however overusing them can be a concern. So what's the best way of using them?
Where can you use Emoji?
Emoji can be used in:
Email subject lines
Email content body
SMS body
Letter body
What should be considered when adding Emoji to comms?
If an emoji is too new, it may not show for your recipients
It takes a few years for emoji added to the standard Emoji List or Unicode Set to reach mobile devices, so don't use emoji that are too new.
Tip - Use sites like Emojipedia to check the age of the emoji you want to use.
Tip - Try to use emoji released 3 or more years ago.
Emoji can vary wildly depending on platform, or not appear at all
Some emoji look very different depending on platform. For example, the gun emoji appears as a squirtgun on most platforms, but as an actual gun on HTC and LG devices.
Some older platforms – MacOS 10.6 and Windows 7 and earlier – can't support emoji at all, so be sure that you're not using emoji to convey critical information (for example, using 😷 to tell students to bring face coverings).
Tip - Use sites like Emojipedia to check what emoji look like across platforms.
Tip - Use Can I Emoji? to check what support is like for your chosen emoji.