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Young Consumers’ Perception Towards The Usage Of Emojis In Social Media: A

Paradigm Shift From Traditional Marketing Practices To Digital Consumerism

Article  in  Solid State Technology · December 2020

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 Solid State Technology
Volume: 63 Issue: 2s
Publication Year: 2020

Young Consumers’ Perception Towards The

Usage Of Emojis In Social Media: A Paradigm
Shift From Traditional Marketing Practices To
Digital Consumerism
1
Megha Sharma , 2Prof. R.C.Dangwal, 3Jolly Masih, 4Dr. Rajkumar Rajesekaran,
1
Research Scholar
1,2
Department of Commerce, HNB Garhwal University,
Srinagar Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India
3
Prestige institute of Engineering, Management and technology
Indore, MP, India
4
Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India
Abstract
The present study explores the young consumers’ perception regarding the usage of emojis in
social media marketing and also examines the effect of gender and internet usage pattern on the
usage of emojis. A quantitative approach was used to collect data through a questionnaire and the
research was conducted in India. Three hundred sixty (360) people were answered closed and
multiple-choice questions out of four hundred two (402) people, in order to quantify the weight of
emojis in the consumer’s mind. The perception of young consumers was assessed with the help of
EFA, Independent t-test and one- way ANOVA. Results showed that the overall perception of
young consumers towards usage of emojis in social media marketing is positive and they find it
entertaining, full of humour, personalised, easy to understand and convincing in nature. In
addition, gender also affects the perception of young consumers. Women are more attracted
towards emojis as compared to men. This paper features the ways in which marketers can get a
chance to gain advantage from emojis in social media to reach their consumers. It also makes a
noteworthy contribution to quantify or make a notice towards the rapidly emerging tool of
marketing. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of emojis in current situation of pandemic
covid-19.
Keywords: Emojis, Social media marketing, Perception, Young generation, Gender, Internet usage

Introduction
Emojis came out with simple thought which would allow people to articulate their feelings and
emotions through text messages without actually quoting or saying “ I am happy today " or I am
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feeling low." Instead, you now can just say, "I went for shopping today, and insert a smiley emoji
face and whoever you are texting will naturally understand that you are happy as you went for
shopping today. Let’s think it, what would the conversation be like without emojis. They have

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totally changed the texting pattern of dialogues and their expressions; it is very difficult to envisage
a world without them. As reported by Swift Media, the routine usage of emoticons or emojis,
stickers in online communication is 74 percent of the U.S. population and it is approximately 96
emoticons or stickers per day. The rise in usage of emojis isn’t confined to social media or younger
demographics. It is beyond age, gender, and social status. Oxford Dictionary has recently come
forward to explain that emojis are a nuanced form of expression, and which have a capability to
cross language barriers and there is no need to preserve of texting " (Angula, 2016).
In written discourse, emojis has communicative power to reduce ambiguity (Kaye et al., 2017).
The ability to represent emotion through textual interfaces has expanded over time and the
interpretations of their intended meanings have turned out to be increasingly vague with a wide
assortment and demographically diverse consumer being able to access emojis in a variety of
conversational contexts.
Many companies have tested the users’ opinions in incorporating emojis into their marketing
practices. The most impressive examples originated from Domino’s Pizza. These people chose to
expose a new way of purchasing a pizza on their own Twitter account. By simply signing up
regarding service in addition to tweeting pizza emojis to the Domino account, users on the social
platform were able to place orders. Around the first day of its execution, more compared to 500
users attempted out the emoji ordering system. This also gained huge media attention for that
company. Apart from, it has already been confirmed that using emojis tends to yield higher rates
of engagement on sites like Twitter. As emojis are growing more and more popular with social
media users and marketers, thus it has become important to understand the usage of emojis to
unveil the hidden motivation of users and to use it for better digital marketing practices.
Over the years, the emojis have been an integral part of our interaction. The emoji is available for
almost all types of expressions. Now people are using emoji’s to talk about the ongoing global
pandemic covid-19. Recently, Emojipedia has published a report which reveals the most
commonly used emojis in coronavirus-related tweets. The study was conducted on twitter by using
thousands of tweets to understand how the users are taking advantage of emojis to talk about
coronavirus. The face mask wearing emoji and microbe emoji have topped the list of most
commonly used emojis in coronavirus related tweets. The “folded hands” icon, which is also
known as “prayer hands” and is used to convey “please” and “thank you,” was used 25% more in
this pandemic situation than the last year.
In today’s scenario marketers are using “shorthand digital language” to communicate their
business messages with customers. Yet the use of this aspect of communication is under-
diagnosed. In marketing, linguistics researches have mainly focused on the effects of word choice,
such as the effect of creative writing on the reader’s mind. Hence, the current study focuses on the
application of emojis within the social media framework and also analyses the effect of gender and
internet usage patterns on the specific idea of younger consumers about the specific use of emojis.
This article consists of seven sections. The introductory section presents the linkage between
emojis and its usage in marketing practices. It is followed by a detailed review of existing literature.
And after that, research methodology is usually presented which is often executed by data analysis

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and findings. Typically, the paper ends with the conclusion, managerial implications, limitations
of the research, and recommendations for future research.

Literature Review
The following section provides the literature related to the constructs of this study.
Emojis
The term “emoji” has come in the existence from the Japanese words for “picture” (e) and
“character” (moji). “Emoticon and emoji give off an impression of being a simple and artificial-
intelligence-based approach to express feelings in various situations or fields like favorite food,
movie, clothes, expressing happiness or anger, etc. Some studies suggest that there is a scope of
improvement in non-verbal abstract techniques to fix out food-related emotion (Vidal et al., 2016).
Emoticon symbolizes psychological details that are of great importance to organisations in the
digital world and continue to function symbolically as indicators of affective significance. (Stark
& Crawford, 2015). Emoticons are used even more in socio-emotional situations as compared to
task-oriented scenarios since it is better to show feelings to a friend than a colleague (Derks et al.,
2007).
Evolution and Usage of Emojis
The evolution of emoticons commence as of the string of keyboard symbols designed to apprehend
the facial expressions, it was presented by the faculty members of the university to reduce
misunderstandings encounter in university blogs (Kennedy, 2012). However, the use of strings of
keyboard symbols for communication was burdensome and extremely time consuming task, the
amassed demand for new or more pictorial symbols had seen worldwide, especially in Japan
(Riordan, 2017). With the development of Unicode in computing, it became conceivable to have
such pictorial symbols, and as the graphic designers and software engineers showed their interest
in emoticons and were translated the emoticons into Unicode characters, now known as emojis.
Emojis were the updated version of emoticons having detailed complex features expressions, such
as grinning face, kissing face with closed eyes and squinting face with tongue etc. Over the years,
the version of Unicode get updated and introduced new set of emojis to the users. The latest version
of Unicode standard, “Unicode 13.0”, was released in March 2020 (Unicode.org, 2020), added
5930 emojis to the former set. At present, the total number of emojis are 143,859.
The popularity of emojis on Twitter around the world depict their popularity manifesting that they
are most popular in South-Eastern Asia and South America, while in the USA (that technically
facilitated the rise of emojis) and Japan (the origin of emojis) the usage frequency of emojis on
Twitter is less (Marengo, Giannotta, & Settanni, 2017). The application of emoji helps both intra-
personal and social concerns for a particular user and his conversation partner. (Kaye et al., 2016).
Young people use emojis mainly in conversation forms such as instant messaging applications but
instead as e-mails in task-oriented communication contexts. (Bosch & Revilla, 2018). Users are
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well aware of the context and prefer to adjust the frequency of their emoji use based on the
particular communication channel. (Kaye, Malone & Wall, 2017).

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Emojis in marketing practices

Marketers are now employing emoji as part of their marketing tool. Marketers are framing
integrated experiences built around them. “Heavy” users of emojis are female and youngsters
(2016 Emoji Report, 2016). Product-context appropriateness can be an effective factor for the
alliance of emotional terms to the consumption of a product, and more so than a person’s frequency
of consumption of the product is also somehow influenced by the usage and interdependence of
the food product and the emoji used (Vora et al., 2017).
Over 500 individuals were surveyed to understand the perception, habits, and preferences of
consumers towards emojis. It found that brands have a positive impression of emojis and their
usage. Moreover, the study revealed that current emoji usage expectations are moved around
personal experiences and consumption. The first impression matters a lot and a minority of
consumers oppose any use of emoji by brands, so brands will need to be very smart about who
they’re messaging and how they will send that first emoji message to delight consumers and
educate the market on the value of emoji use in messages (The Appboy Emoji study, 2016).
Emojis are a powerful tool for a marketer and brands. It is the best practice to keep the same
message in the minds of consumers for a long time (Tao, 2016). Many marketers are making or
using emojis into their business campaigns as a way to better promote their products to reach target
audiences (Angula, 2016).
Individuals send an average of 96 emoticons or stickers per day, which is around 6 billion around
the globe. Advertisers know about their prevalence and have planned different approaches to join
them into their advanced showcasing methodologies. Online networking, email marketing, and
versatile application advertising have all turned out to be a standard place for the utilization of
emojis (Speire, 2015). Some brands are using emojis just for the sake of being a part of the digital
marketing trend. There are a few brands tapping emoticons not for a hotshot, but rather for utility.
For instance, the World Wide Fund for Nature used the symbols into a Twitter fundraising
campaign that supported purchasers who routinely utilize emoticons of jeopardized creatures to
donate to its conservation efforts (Wergert, 2015).
Companies are taking advantages of emojis on social media to make the customer feel like they
listen and cares about themselves. They are answering to the customer in emojis language, using
emojis in each comment, and showing emotions to them in consumer’s language (Barysevich,
2017). Hill (2016) upheld previous eWOM research as the valence of the review largely affected
the shoppers' perception towards the companies’ quality of the response to an online consumer
review, purchase intent, brand relationship with an interesting finding where in most cases the use
of an emoticon in positive valence message credits to the most grounded discoveries (Luangrath
et al., 2017).
Based on the literature review, it is very clear that the usage of emojis in marketing ads or messages
is in its budding stage. And this study deals with the young consumers’ perception regarding
emojis, which is itself a primary attempt in the field of marketing.

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Objectives
1. To explore young consumers’ perceptions regarding the usage of emojis in social media
marketing.
2. To ascertain the impact of gender on young consumers’ perception regarding the usage of
emojis in social media marketing.
3. To assess the impact of internet usage on young consumers’ perceptions regarding the usage
of emojis in social media marketing.

Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were formulated for testing:
H1: There is a significant impact of gender on young consumers’ perceptions regarding the usage
of emojis in social media marketing.
H2: There is a significant impact of internet usage characteristics on the young consumers’
perception regarding the usage of emojis in social media marketing.

Research Methodology
In this study, the target population is millennials (young consumers), an i.e. individual born
between 1982 and 2003. We concentrate on this target group since this generation has been
established as the one with the highest emoji use (Emogi Research Team, 2016). Moreover, the
study empirically assesses the perception of young consumers towards the usage of emojis in social
media marketing. The research was conducted on young consumers aged between 18 and 30. The
sample consisted of 360 respondents from India.

Survey Instrument
A self –structured questionnaire was prepared to get the perception of young consumers regarding
usage of emojis in social media marketing as no previous scale was available for measurement.
The data was retrieved from respondents through both an online and offline survey. As the target
population of the study was young consumers aged between 18 and 30 who had a basic knowledge
of the English language and should hold an account on any social networking sites. As a result,
three filtering questions were required to identify the target sample for this study. The first
screening query was whether the respondents had a basic knowledge of the English dialect. The
second filtering issue was whether the respondents used social media sites for different purposes.
Ultimately, the third screening question was whether the respondents had made the use of
emoticons on any online networking site. Respondents were likewise solicited to exhibit their level
of agreement/disagreement with a statement to quantify the constructs in the sample using a five-
point Likert scale.

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Variables
In this study, Entertainment, Humorous, Personalisation, Easy to understand, and Convincing were
the factors of emojis usage in marketing practices that were taken as dependent (predictor)
variables. On the other hand, gender and internet usage characteristics were the independent
variable.

Data Collection
The data collection method employed in this study is a quantitative research approach, which has
been in the form of a cross-sectional, structured, close-ended, self-administered questionnaire to
solve the research questions of the study. Judgmental sampling was used to collect primary data
from young consumers in India through an online and offline questionnaire.

Data Analysis Techniques

SPSS 21 ® (Statistics Package for Social Science) was used to analyze the data collected from the
questionnaires. Each questionnaire was coded and entered in the SPSS data file. Appropriate
analytical methods have been used to obtain the results and conclusions of the study. Descriptive
analysis was used to obtain information about demographic and internet usage profile of
respondents. Factor analysis was used to know the correlation between the statements and get
reliable factors for the study. An independent sample t-test was used to determine the effect of
gender on emoji constructs. In addition, one-way ANOVA was used to check the effect of patterns
of Internet use on emoji constructs.

Respondents’ Profile
The demographic and internet usage profile of the respondents is shown in the following figures.
Figure 1: Respondents’ demographic Profile

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Source: Authors’ own findings

Figure 1 summarizes the demographic profile of respondents. The sample (n=360) comprised
48.3% (174) male and 51.7% (186) female respondents. Approximately 86.7% were aged 18-21
years, 6.1% between 22-26 years, and 7.2% between 27-30 years. The majority of respondents
were undergraduate (62.6%). Most of the respondents had the family monthly income of upto
25000 (66.7%). Furthermore, 90.6% respondents were having unmarried marital status in the
selected sample.

Figure 2: Respondents’ Internet Usage Profile

Source: Authors’ own findings

Figure 2 shows the internet usage profile of respondents. It showed that the majority of
respondents accessed social networking sites by using a mobile device (62.8%). In length of usage
category, 18.3% of respondents have been using social media for more than 5 years, whereas
35.0% started using social media since a year ago. Approximately, 52% of respondents checked
their social media account daily and 27.2% checked 2-4 a week. They use social media platforms
like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., for socialising, entertainment, and information. They also
use this platform for participating in discussions, quizzes, games, and surveys and give feedback
on products and services. When respondents asked about the frequency of updating social media
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profile, 25% of respondent answered they update their profile once a month, 24.4% does the same
in 2-4 times a week, while only 10% of respondents said that they update their profile daily.

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Moreover, on the question of log on duration, 54.4% of respondents used social media less or equal
to 1 hour a day as they find this much of the time spent on social media sufficient to maintain a
virtual presence among various groups.

Data Analysis and Results

Factor Analysis and Reliability
In order to analyse the data, exploratory factor analysis was carried out to verify the validity of the
construct. This technique is used to reduce the huge number of intersecting items measured to the
much relatively small set of factors or constructs. (Green & Salkind, 2017). In this study, the
statements regarding the application of emojis in social media were asked to the respondents for
the scale development. The theme of usage of emojis in social media marketing comprised of a
total of 31 items in which 14 items were removed due to low communalities value or low factor
loading, followed by checking of reliability of scale with the help of Cronbach’s Alpha. After the
deletion of certain items of the constructs, the value of Cronbach’s alpha came out to be 0.792.
After the final run, five factors were established from the exploratory factor analysis.These
constructs are entertainment, humorous, personalisation, easy to understand, and convincing. Hsu
et al., (2010) suggested that the item should have a value of more than 0.70, with 0.50 being the
least accepted value to achieve internal consistency.

Table 1: Constructs of Exploratory Factor Analysis and Reliability Analysis

Construct Scale items CV FL Eigenvalu % of % of
e varianc cumulativ
e e variance
Entertainment I feel them enjoyable 0.62 0.75 2.32 13.66 13.66
(emj30). 7 7
I find them entertaining 0.60 0.72
(emj29). 6 0
I find them creative 0.59 0.67
(emj24). 4 2
I find emojis ads useful 0.50 0.62
(emj26). 2 8
Humorous I find them attractive in 0.67 0.77 1.95 11.49 25.16
nature (emj19). 5 5
It is funnier than 0.49 0.64
traditional ads (emj11). 2 6
I find them interesting 0.54 0.63
(emj20). 1 9
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Personalisatio I find that ads with 0.66 0.76 1.82 10.76 35.92
n emojis give emotional 6 3

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touch with respective

brand (emj22).
I feel that emojis ads 0.48 0.61
display personalized 2 0
content to me (emj13).
I find them aesthetics 0.47 0.55
(emj18). 7 5
I think they take my 0.72 0.53
preferences into 0 5
account in their ads
(emj15).
Easy to Emojis are a better fit 0.62 0.75 1.65 9.7 45.63
understand than words in marketing 4 1
ads (emj5).
It makes it easy for me 0.42 0.60
to understand 8 7
marketing
ads/messages (emj3).
It helps me more 0.49 0.57
accurately express what 4 5
I am thinking (emj2).
Convincing It allows quick 0.58 0.69 1.61 9.51 55.14
information about the 8 9
content (emj10).
They are convincing in 0.57 0.59
nature (emj12). 2 4
I find ads with emojis 0.48 0.54
more convincing than 9
traditional one (emj25).
KMO 0.768
BARLETT’S Chi-
TEST square=1274.290,p>0.0
5
Cronbach’s 0.792
Alpha
Number of 360
cases
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Source: Authors’ own findings

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With the 55.17% of total variance explained, all the items displayed factor loadings >0.50 and all
the factors obtained eigenvalues >1. The KMO test of sampling adequacy for items was recorded
0.768 (i.e. > 0.6), suggesting a sufficient inter-correlation of the Bartlett Sphericity Test, which
was considered to be significant (ꭓ2 = 1274.29, p<0.05). Therefore, the sample size of 360 was
sufficient and appropriate for this analysis. With the exploratory factor analysis, the first objective
of the study has achieved. The technique of EFA has reduced the statements and identify the most
important factors of usage of emojis in social networking sites.

Scree Plot
Factors extraction using the graphical method is shown in Figure 3.
As shown in the figure, on the sixth component, the point of inflection occurred, after which the
line slope changes dramatically. Then, five factors extracted here are placed on the left of the point
of inflection (Field 2009, p.640). Thus, the Scree plot also proves the extraction of five factors for
these data.
Figure 3: Scree Plot for extracted factors

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics

Construct Mean Std. Deviation Skewness Kurtosis
Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max
Entertainment 3.44 3.73 0.948 1.067 -0.573 -1.193 -0.214 1.427
Humorous 3.50 3.64 0.976 1.062 -0.486 -0.814 -0.090 0.315
Personalisation 3.07 3.29 1.028 1.064 -0.033 -0.498 -0.280 -0.521
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Easy to understand 3.30 3.65 1.003 1.122 -0.302 -0.814 -0.684 0.155
Convincing 3.24 3.48 0.892 1.026 -0.369 -0.608 -0.065 0.001

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Table 2 presents the pooled descriptive analysis of the constructs items of the study. It is described
with support of Mean, Standard Deviation, Skewness, and Kurtosis. The mean score of constructs
namely entertainment ranged between 3.44 and 3.73, humorous 3.50 to 3.64, and easy to
understand 3.30 to 3.65 exhibits moderately agreed with the scale and items. Whereas,
Personalisation ranged from 3.07 to 3.29 and convincing 3.24 to 3.48 indicating neutral response
towards the scale.
Further, the standard deviation measures the concentration of the data around the mean. Basically,
a small standard deviation means that the values in the data set are close to the mean, on average,
and a large standard deviation means that the values in the data set are, on average, far away from
the mean. In the current research, the values of standard deviation (SD) for constructs:
entertainment, humorous, personalisation, easy to understand, and convincing are 0.735, 0.768,
0.686, 0.763, and 0.706 respectively.
In statistics, skewness and kurtosis are commonly used to determine data normality. Skewness is
a measure of the asymmetry of the probability distribution of a random variable about its mean. If
the skewness is between-0.5 and 0.5, the distribution is approximately symmetrical (Lehmann,
1986). On the other hand, Kurtosis determines whether the data are peaked or flat as compared to
a normal distribution. Skewness and kurtosis values of retained items were examined which fall in
the acceptable range. All the values signify that data possess normal characteristic

Figure 4: Box Plot

Figure 4 shows the boxplot of emojis variables in social media marketing. In statistics, box-plot
is an effective exploratory data analysis tool for determining the significant effect of a factor on
the response in terms of either location or variation (Chambers, 1983). The vertical axis of box-

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plot shows the statement of an agreement which was measured by 5 point Likert scale ranging
from 1 to 5, indicating strongly disagree to strongly agree. On the other hand, the horizontal axis
represents the various factors of usage of emojis in social media marketing. The box-plot shows
that emojis usage variables have a significant effect on the perception of young consumers
concerning both location and variation. Entertainment has the highest mean response (M=3.60);
though, personalisation has the lowest mean response (M=3.16) to the statement of agreement.
Testing of Hypothesis
The formulated hypotheses have been tested in this section to achieve the stated objectives.
Independent Sample t-test
This section brings about the empirical investigation of gender-wise differences in the perception
of young consumers regarding emojis. Previous research indicates that gender plays a major role
in deciding the factor influencing customer behavior. The independent sample t-test compares the
two means of sample to determine if the average population is substantially different from each
other. To test the first hypothesis (H1), that there is a significant difference in perception of male
and female regarding usage of emojis in social media marketing, an independent sample t-test was
applied on gender and various constructs of usage of emojis in social media marketing. The results
are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3: Independent Sample t-test across gender and constructs of Emojis

Constructs Gender Mean Std. Levine’s T-value Sig.

Deviation test
Entertainment Female 3.75 0.61948 20.697 4.202 0.000*
Male 3.43 0.81196
Humorous Female 3.72 0.65995 13.103 3.459 0.001*
Male 3.44 0.84763
Personalisation Female 3.18 0.66236 5.864 .853 0.394
Male 3.12 0.71105
Easy to Female 3.62 0.68769 7.143 4.222 0.000*
understand Male 3.29 0.80369
Convincing Female 3.47 0.71168 2.626 3.309 0.001*
Male 3.23 0.67264

Note: Significant at p>0.05 Source:

Authors’ own findings.
As shown by Table 3, the independent sample t-test shows the importance of gender in describing
the use of emojis in social media marketing. The alternate hypothesis (H1) was accepted by the
independent sample t-test when applied at a 5 percent level of significance. It may be noted that
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the independent t-test significance (p-value) is < 0.05, for all variables expect Personalisation. That
is because the mean male (M=3.12) and female (M=3.18) scores are almost the same. They both

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agree that emojis have emotional touch, personalised content, and aesthetics quality. Thus, there
is a difference in the perception of male and female in the usage of emojis in social media
marketing. The total number of emoticons posted was predicted significantly and robustly by
gender; younger users and women posted more emoticons than older users and men (Oleszkiewicz
et al., 2017).

One- way ANOVA

One-way ANOVA is used to determine whether there are statistically notable differences between
the means of the three or more separate groups. To test the hypothesis (H2), that there is a
significant impact of internet usage characteristics on young consumer’s perception regarding the
usage of emojis in social media marketing. One way ANOVA was carried out on the constructs of
usage of emojis in social media marketing and internet usage characteristics. Results are listed in
Table 4.

Table 4: One-way ANOVA across Internet usage characteristics and Constructs of Emojis
Internet Usage Constructs of Emojis F-value Significance
Access Entertainment 2.743 0.066
Humorous 0.843 0.431
Personalisation 1.864 0.157
Easy to understand 0.005 0.995
Convincing 2.712 0.068
Length of Usage Entertainment 0.471 0.754
Humorous 3.910 0.004*
Personalisation 1.648 0.162
Easy to understand 4.193 0.002*
Convincing 1.485 0.206
Log on Frequency Entertainment 1.770 0.134
Humorous 7.997 0.000*
Personalisation .617 0.650
Easy to understand 0.815 0.516
Convincing 1.888 0.112
Profile update Entertainment 2.81 0.890
incidence
Humorous 1.967 0.099
Personalisation 1.019 0.398
Easy to understand 1.580 0.179
Convincing 3.171 0.014*
Log on duration Entertainment 1.326 0.260
Humorous 2.524 0.041*

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Personalisation 1.971 0.098

Ease to understand 1.036 0.389
Convincing 1.465 0.212
Note: Significant at p>0.05 Source:
Authors’ own findings
As shown in the table, the ANOVA analysis indicates that there is no significance of internet usage
characteristics in explaining the factors responsible for the usage of emojis in social media
marketing. It was also noted that the ANOVA significance (p-value) is > 0.05, for all variables
except in few cases. Particularly, length of usage, log on frequency, and log on duration has a
significant effect on humorous content of emojis in social media marketing. This suggests that as
more users log on to a particular social media platform, encounters with more ads of emojis. It is
also found that profile update incidence has a significant effect on the convincing features of
emojis. Further, access, profile update incidence, and log on duration have no significant influence
on the usage of emojis in social media marketing. Hence, the hypothesis H2 is rejected.

Conclusion
Emojis in marketing practices have emerged as a new weapon for marketers to prove their presence
in the virtual world. Females are more active in social media platforms as compared to men. The
reasons may be they used social media platforms to make a connection or to stay in touch with
family or friends and women are more emotional than men, this can provoke them to use emojis
to express their feeling in a better and more expressive way. Aged Between 18-22, young
consumers are contributing a large share of the usage of emojis in social media marketing. These
age group consumers are more tech-savvy and generally college-going youth. The present research
has attempted to study the young consumers’ minds or perceptions regarding the usage of emojis
in social media. The five dimensions of usage of emojis have come out from research i.e.
entertaining, humorous, personalised, and convincing, and easy to understand. Gender has a
significant effect on young consumers’ perception regarding the usage of emojis in social media
marketing which is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017;
Wilmer & katzman, 2006). Both males and females have different perceptions regarding the
dimension of emojis i.e., entertaining, humorous, convincing, and easy to understand except
personalisation. Therefore, the first hypothesis (H1) is validated. The log in frequency has a
significant effect on young consumers’ perception regarding the usage of emojis in social media
marketing (Duffett, 2015). Moreover, the other factors of internet usage characteristics have shown
no significant for the usage of emojis. Therefore, the second hypothesis (H2) is rejected.

Managerial Implication
9463

The research and its findings have far-reaching implications for all e-marketers and various
businesses involved in social media. The usage of emojis in social media marketing offers diverse
benefits for advertisers or marketers. Firstly, emojis humanizes business communication and

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Volume: 63 Issue: 2s
Publication Year: 2020

allows businesses to engage emotionally with consumers. Second, it helps to improve customer
retention by providing a range of personalized features that can communicate very well through
live chat, social media. Thirdly, the fun element of using emojis makes the customer experience
more enjoyable and helps in keeping the customer engaged with a message. And last but not least,
deeper insight into the use of emojis in push notifications can help marketers realize that these
icons are so effective in helping brands improve their conversion rate, open rate, retention boost,
etc. with minimal effort. In nutshell, the most important attribute of emoji is its art of conveying
the message in a more easy, convincing, and humorous way, that’s why youth are inclining towards
it and recall it and remember it for a long time. However, the use of emojis in social media should
be taken seriously by all advertisers. If the company does not have a social media presence and
still not using emojis in marketing practices, it may squander an opportunity to gain customer
attention in the marketplace. According to the results of this study, trace the important factors
which influence the young consumer’s perception of emojis, and that is the aspect which
advertisers need to take into account. Emojis are entertaining, full of humor, personalised, easy to
understand, and convincing. While crafting emojis for social media marketing, it should consist of
all attributes which made it more acceptable in a virtual place. Moreover, findings also look emojis
element in marketing practices as the innovative step and it replacing traditional marketing
practices. Finally, in the time of global crisis covid-19, emojis are the right way of communicating
our fears, advice on hygiene, and even reminders on social distancing protocols. The folded hand,
hand washing, facemask, microbe, nauseated face, sneezing face and bar of soap are some emojis
depicting the current situation of pandemic. Thus, new ways of deploying emojis have sprung up
in response of covid -19.

Research limitations and future research

Since the study is confined to the young consumers of India, studies considering other countries,
jobs, age groups, and social classes may unveil a better rationale for the usage of emojis in social
media marketing. It would be worthwhile to validate and generalize the results of the research by
taking a larger sample of consumers from different cities across India. The sample of 360 is
relatively small for scale development. Moreover, It is also considered that the use questionnaire
method for data collection has its own limits, i.e. people may understand each question in a
different way and thus their response was totally based on their own interpretation of the question.
With this reason, future research can be conducted qualitatively to determine the various ways to
promote the use of emojis on the social media site. As well as future researchers may probe new
variables that can affect the young consumers’ perception regarding usage of emojis in social
media marketing.

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Volume: 63 Issue: 2s
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