Messaging apps have become the dominant form of online communication, especially among millennials. Emoji and other visual elements are ideal for brands to connect with audiences in an engaging way within messaging platforms. Custom emoji keyboards allow universities to build connections with diverse alumni and fan bases, spread school spirit, and effectively promote fundraising campaigns through a mobile-first strategy. The document outlines the process for collaboratively creating a custom emoji app to represent a university's character and engage key constituencies.

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Higher ed, millenials,
messaging, and
strengthening your
brand one emoji at a
time

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The message is the medium
Research shows communication via messaging apps is growing exponentially, by way
of apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and more. Messaging use has eclipsed
traditional social media, and the gap between their usage and engagement will only
continue to grow.
“The social media phase of the internet ended …
Messaging is the new social media.”
Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures

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Social media is here to stay of course, and will continue to grow in its own right.
But messaging is leading a cultural shift in communication style, and that shift is
perhaps no better symbolized than the humble emoji.
We’re being driven more and more towards quick, bright, to-the-point
communication. If a Facebook status isn’t immediately engaging, or you can’t get
a meaningful message out in 140 characters on Twitter, your potential audience
will scroll right on by. What catches the eye among all the text in our messages and
feeds are images, which is why emoji, stickers, and GIFs have become an easy and
impactful way of expressing thoughts and feelings.
That’s why emoji are ideal for brands: they’re noticeable, instantly recognizable,
and fun to use. If your brand is appearing in someone’s text messages and status
updates, you become part of their lives, an extension of their personality, and deeply
integrated into their online experience. This is, of course, exactly where brands want
and need to be.
Enter emoji keyboards
Standard emoji only go so far though, which has given rise to a host of massively
popular emoji, sticker, and GIF keyboards to expand the range of visual and symbolic
expression across the full range of messaging and social platforms. From the Pope’s
Popemoji, to Kim Kardashian’s Kimoji, to Dove’s Love Your Curls emoji keyboard,
brands of every shape and size are venturing into creating mobile-first, made-for-
sharing content and platforms.
That’s why we built our emoji marketing platform, for brands to easily share and
express their personality and connect with their audience.
This new platform is particularly well-suited to colleges and universities, for a host
of reasons.

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The audience is broad and deep
A school’s followers — students, alumni, parents, staff and fans — are typically
geographically diverse. These followers, who may also be very demographically
diverse, are united over one thing — their devotion to their school and/or team.
If they don’t live in the same place where the school is located, it’s challenging
to stay engaged, at least on a day-to-day basis. A custom emoji app extends your
reach to them, and more importantly, among them, allowing them to connect with
each other and celebrate their shared love of your school with one another. It’s that
“engagement triangulation” that roots messages deep and strong.
Big schools and schools with large athletics programs stand to benefit greatly from
emoji apps. Our experience with Purrmoji, an emoji keyboad we created for the
Carolina Panthers, tells us that fans want to share their emotions around the game
experience, and fans love emoji that capture what it’s like to attend or simply watch
their favorite teams play. Purrmoji features fans’ favorite players, coaches, signature
plays and moves (think dabbing), cheers, and landmarks like the stadium and in
Purrmoji, the Charlotte’s skyline. After going live a few weeks before to Super Bowl
50, over 50,000 users had shared Purrmoji, demonstrating the power of bringing a
community together that, while physically separate, shares a strong common bond
and passion.
Fans want to be connected, with their
school and with each other
Let’s look at alumni engagement. It’s more and more of a challenge to stay
connected to former students once they pass through the gates for the last time.
Life has a way of distracting you — careers, relationships, families, other interests
— all draw our attention away from what once meant so much to us when we were
students. A custom emoji app is one way to seriously reignite our interest with our
alma mater and puts the power to deliver important messages directly to the target
audience. And push notifications can be delivered through the emoji app to keep

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the communication regular and current, and encourage calls to action like attending
events and giving to campaigns.
Emoji are also valuable for engaging prospective students, who as millennials,
are strongly motivated to seek shared experiences with and approval from their
friends online. Branded emojis, when used to celebrate a student’s choice in schools
for instance, can be a uniquely powerful tool in fostering loyalty and spreading
enthusiasm and awareness.
Emoji express your school’s character
Custom emoji are a way to express and celebrate your school’s character, history,
traditions, and memorable moments. When you empower your fans with tools to
create and improvise with your brand, you spread ownership of that character,
creating an advertising campaign that keeps going, and so much more.
What’s more, an emoji keyboard isn’t just a one-and-done campaign. It’s a new
channel you can leverage as often as you want, adding new emoji to highlight special
events, mark important moments throughout the year, celebrate victories, launch
campaigns, raise awareness over important issues or initiatives such as campus
safety or student life. Imagine a set of custom emojis promoting a campus safety
“70% of millennials are more excited about a
decision they’ve made when their friends agree
with them, compared to 48% of non-millennials.”
The Millennial Generation Research Review,
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation

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initiative around drinking responsibly, sexual harassment, diversity, or getting out
the vote, all tying back to your school’s unique personality, students and fans.
A custom emoji app is also a way to connect the entire school in one platform. We
think a successful emoji app happens when more than one college, department, or
division works together to target a range of constituencies represented in a school’s
fan base. The more cooperation and collaboration, the larger the reach and impact.
Academics, Alumni Affairs, Student Life, Development, Athletics — everyone can
engage their audience through emoji.
Emoji apps energize fundraising
A custom emoji app with the addition of push notifications can be an extremely
effective and dynamic tool for fundraising campaigns. Unlike social media, when
your keyboard app is installed on someone’s phone, you have access to a valuable bit
of digital real estate and guaranteed attention.
When users download your emoji app, they can receive push notifications from you
with updates, event notifications, campaign messaging, and giving requests. You can
target your audience with the kind of urgency not possible through email or social
media.
Imagine how much more successful your next 24-hour fundraising campaign could
be if you introduce it through your custom emoji app, with push notifications telling
users when big gifts come in. Have a challenge grant? Notify your entire audience
in seconds via push notification and there’s no way they’ll miss it! What if your
campaign included an exclusive pack of emoji for donors who make gifts to your
campaign at a certain level? This adds a publicly visible, unique perk to their VIP
donor status.
A custom emoji app enables a whole new world of opportunities to communicate
with your donors, fans, and prospects in the most direct way possible.

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Mobile is the present, and future
Traditional advertising campaigns are expensive and time consuming. They have a
defined lifespan, and they leverage existing, diminishing channels versus forging
ahead into the emerging and growing world of mobile advertising. There is a roughly
$22 billion uncapitalized gap between the amount of time people spend consuming
content, and the money spent to reach those people with branded messages.
Traditional advertising is getting more expensive and it’s hard to quantify success.
Add to this the fact that millennials, in particular, are always-connected users of
smartphones, reaching for their phone on waking, and using it right up to when
they fall asleep. As mobile natives, the smartphone is their medium of choice. 84%
of millennials dislike traditional advertising, and half simply ignore it. Making
mobile, especially content produced and consumed natively on mobile like messages
between friends and family, a prime channel for engagement.

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So you want an emoji app, what’s next?
The process for creating and launching a custom emoji app is very straightforward.
From idea to launch, the process generally takes about 30 days. Here’s how it works.
1. Strategy
We help determine the goals and audience, making sure we’re crafting a campaign
with resonance and relevance. Then we identify upcoming events, celebrations,
holidays, and campaigns that might benefit from a coordinated batch of custom
emoji and GIFs, and plan our rollout of artwork and messaging accordingly.
2. Content
We get to work brainstorming art concepts, factoring in the school’s brand and the
target audience’s style. We start with simple sketches and quickly work our way to
final, polished artwork.
3. Build
Now we decide what technology we want to deploy. Will the app be released for both
iOS and Android? Will we connect the app to our cloud platform to provide analytics
and on-demand push messaging?
4. Launch
We’ll create promotional graphics and content for the app store’s product pages, and
for promotion via social media. And finally we’ll submit the final apps for review and
publication on Google and Apple’s app stores!
5. Measure
If our cloud platform is used, we’ll start providing detailed analytics about emoji
usage, including which emoji are being used and how often, which can provide
interesting sentiment and engagement insights.
6. Update
With the app is in people’s hands, we can update with fresh content whenever we
like. If our cloud platform is used, we can start sending users messages with calls to
action or additional emoji packs timed with events. The possibilities are endless!

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Let’s do it!
We love working with organizations that have an interest in unique and compelling
digital marketing campaigns like you. We’re happy to answer any questions, hear
your ideas, and provide any further insight, at any time.
Thanks!
Candice Langston, Solid
Justin Ruckman, Priceless Misc