Emojis have added a uniqueness and a twist to modern communication, making it quick, fun and quirky. Emojis have a casual connotation to them, and most people look down on emojis being used in professional communication. The emojis have also jumped out of our phones and have become a part of the ethos and the popular culture of the 21st century.

Here are a few facts about emojis which many people may not be aware about:

Shalom Melaku/Unsplash. Emojis have fast become a part of pop culture.

They are immensely popular:

To gauge the popularity of the emoji phenomenon would be a huge task, as millions are typing out billions of emojis in a moment in real-time.  They are used casually among friends, coworkers, in advertising and social media marketing. They convey meaning which sometimes words can fail to deliver, and are a short, snappy way to put your point across while keeping things casual. More than 95% people on the Internet utilize emojis in instant messaging, and more than 700 million emojis are used in Facebook posts in a single day.

geralt/Pixabay. Adding an emoji to your Facebook post or email can increase engagement dramatically.

Emojis are great to get engagement and response:

It has been observed that emojis increase engagement manifold. Adding emojis to a tweet can increase engagement by 25.4%. Adding emojis in a Facebook post in between blocks of text can increase engagement by 57% and you are 33% more likely to get comments and shares if you lace your Facebook posts with emojis.

If you use an emoji in an email, the chances of it getting opened and read also increases by a whopping 56%!

Emoji Awards are a thing:

There is an official World Emoji contest, where internet users vote for the most popular emoji categories, such as Excellence in Emoji Use, Best New Emoji and the Most Used Emoji et cetera. Each year the jury awards an Emoji of the Year. The polls occur a week before World Emoji Day, and the winners are awarded right on World Emoji Day, which is 17 July.

charlesdeluvio/Unsplash. The first emojis were created in 1999, making it a relatively old concept.

Emojis are a relatively old concept:

Emojis were created in 1999 by Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita. He designed 176 original images to be used as emojis. They are now a part of the New York Museum of Modern Art, as part of their permanent collection.They became part of the mainstream when the Unicode Consortium added the emojis into the Unicode Standard.