Chances are, your emojis are being misunderstood

With over half the characters used on Instagram being emoji, it’s important that you’re getting them right.

You’ve probably seen the recent news reports about how emoji's are shown across platforms. We were all aware that there was some variation, as different platforms design their emoji in their own particular style, but this week it emerged that some emoji are almost entirely different.

Take the grinning face. On Google, Microsoft, LG, HTC, Mozilla and Emoji One, this is shown by a face with a big toothy grin. On Samsung, it’s a laughing face. But on iOS, Facebook and Twitter, the face isn’t so happy — those clenched teeth look more constipated than cheerful.

This weeks’ revelations went deeper than that, though. The GroupLens Research Team at the University of Minnesota conducted a study into the variations between emoji, and how we perceive them. It’ll come as no surprise, then, that the grinning emoji shown above was the most misunderstood.

The researchers asked participants to rate 22 emoji from five different platforms by sentiment, on a scale of -5 (very negative) to +5 (very positive). The results for the grinning emoji are hugely telling.

As you can see, whilst the Microsoft, Samsung, LG and Google grinning faces were rated as being between +3 and +5 — largely positive by anyone’s account — the Apple emoji scores -1. People are certainly picking up on the awkwardness in that guy’s face!

Grinning face isn’t the only emoji that’s misconstrued, though. Joining it are the cheeky face with mouth open and eyes tightly closed, the monkey hiding it’s eyes, the sleepy face, tears of joy and the crying face.

That wasn’t the only surprising data to come out of the study, though. When you’re sending an emoji across platforms, researchers found that there was an automatic sentiment variance of 2.04 points, which is quite substantial. Researchers also found that there was a variance when sending emoji within platforms, too — and at 1.88 points, that’s still a lot of misunderstandings!

It’s not the end of the study, with the same researchers revealing that they will now be looking into emoji’s included with full text messages, whether emoji are understood differently in different cultures, and building systems to help test the potential for misunderstanding in new emoji renderings.

But why’s it so important? A number of scholars believe that emoji usage represents a fundamental change in the way that we use language, and if they are right, fully understanding what role emoji’s have in human communication will be important. The study could also help Unicode, an international consortium that governs emoji across platforms, to be clearer in it’s definitions and align emoji tightly across platforms.

For marketers, though, the pertinent point will be that emoji are already becoming the dominant language on Instagram, and other social networks could follow suit. Facebook is almost encouraging this, with the release of emoji-style reactions recently.

Thomas Dimson, a software engineer at Instagram, recently revealed that emoji are becoming a valid and near-universal method of expression across all languages on the platform. He shared data which showed emoji usage on Instagram had risen steeply since emoji were added to iOS keyboards in 2011, and as of March 2015, almost half of all text-based messages on Instagram contained an emoji. In Finland, 60% of all text contains an emoji.

It’s an exciting change, but one that will require research. Before you or your brand jump on using emoji, make sure you understand what the emoji means — both officially, and the meaning accepted by your audience. The same goes for replying to emoji posts customers or fans put on your social media profiles.

We have a lot to learn about emoji, and it looks like they’re here to stay.