Emojis ruled this year, not only as the “word” of the year, but also in branding.
Seattle-based Simply Measured found that emojis were “all over” brand posts for 2015, with 35 percent of brands using emojis in captions. You can see the top 10 most-used emojis in the chart above.
The second-most used emoji — the heart — was the one that engaged people on Instagram the most. See chart below:
In its “2015 Instagram Industry Report,” Simply Measured also found that 90 percent of Interbrand 100 companies now have Instagram accounts, 82 percent of which have posted to them in the last month.
The number of brands that post more than 50 times per month has doubled in the last year, from seven to 14. A third of companies post to Instagram about 10 to 20 times per month.
Simply Measured looked at the Instagram activity of the Interbrand 2015 Best 100 Global Brands over 30 days, from Oct. 31, 2015, to Nov. 29, 2015 to compile the results. See the chart to the right.
They’ve found that Instagram isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s an “essential network for social marketers.”
“The network isn’t just a photo-sharing service for teens anymore, it’s a visual storytelling platform that offers both flexibility and function like we’ve never seen before,” writes Simply Measured in the report. “The ability to create visually compelling images and videos without ever leaving the clean, intuitive interface has enabled marketers in a way few networks have.”
Nike is a huge leader when it comes to Instagram with over 29 million followers, but Starbucks is also dialing into the power of the social media site with more than 6.7 million followers. Starbucks especially tapped into the power of emojis to drive engagement with its audience.
“Starbucks also accounted for the most popular emoji during the period. They did so by tying that emoji, the snowman, directly to their photo content,” Simply Measured reported.
