Emojis are here to stay, so figure out how to use them

Among my peers, I mostly hear a lot of disdain for these cartoony icons strung together to form a sentence or a thought, or to convey an idea or emotion. On his now-defunct “Jay Today,” Jay Baer asked if marketers should take emoji seriously. Comments to the YouTube post were mostly dismissive, characterized by this one: “I am too old to spend extra time trying to translate what emojis mean. I want words—please.” Jay himself concluded that emoji users should listen to the same advice he offers his children: “Use your words.”

As a writer, I’m sympathetic to Jay’s plea. I’m equally cognizant, though, of the general shift toward visual communication, a trend I continue to urge my clients to follow and about which I speak frequently. The instant I heard Jay say, “Use your words,” I thought, “Isn’t a picture worth a thousand of those?”