Best Practices for using Emojis in Slack Internal Comms
Emojis have come a long way since they were first introduced on Japanese mobile phones in 1997. 25 years on, they are an important part of workplace culture: according to Pumble, 77% of people used emojis at work in 2022. They can be used to break down language barriers, become more inclusive or simply to make the workday more enjoyable. Emojis can also be an effective tool for internal communications, and we’re going to cover some best practices and applications for using emojis on Slack for internal comms.
1. Getting Started 🏁
2. Signpost your emojis for Slack internal comms 🚧
3. Categorize updates in employee newsletters with emojis 📒
4. Receive employee feedback with reacjis 🤩
5. Use emojis in employee polls 🗳️
6. Add custom emojis on Slack 🚀
1. Getting Started 🏁
Emojis are a great way to help internal comms stand out more on Slack from a visual perspective. Creating some guidelines for how you want to incorporate emojis into your internal comms will ensure that all the relevant stakeholders are on the same page. A consistent approach also helps reduce the cognitive effort for employees to read and engage with comms: for example, if you include an emoji before your first update or heading, it’s better to use the same format throughout your post. This may be a controversial opinion, but emojis can sometimes be overused. There are exceptions to this, but if there are a sea of emojis in every post 🌊 🌊🌊, some employees may be put off. Try and use emojis purposefully – one or two emojis per update/ paragraph is usually sufficient.
2. Signpost your emojis for Slack internal comms 🚧
Slack is one of the most popular internal comms channels for hybrid or remote-first companies, and as a result, emojis tend to play a bigger role in day-to-day communications. For internal comms, it’s helpful to signpost what the emojis included within your comms represent (this is especially important for newer employees). An ‘emoji cheat sheet’ can be created with minimum effort and I’ve included a sample below with a few suggestions 👇
Emoji Cheat Sheet for Internal Comms updates
📢 = Leadership Announcement
👩💼 = People Updates
🌳 = Corporate Social Responsibility
🕺🏽 = Events
3. Categorize updates in employee newsletters with emojis 📒
Categorizing your employee newsletter updates on Slack using emojis can help internal comms teams organize their content in a clearer, more consistent way. It also helps employees digest updates more easily, as they can do a quick scan to determine which of the updates are most relevant to them. In addition to internal comms topics (as in the above sample), you could use emojis to categorize updates by department (e.g., 🔧 = engineering), by location (using flags for e.g.) or by the related company value. Categorizing will also improve the searchability of posts for your colleagues: you can search and view Slack posts by their emoji.
4. Receive employee feedback with reacjis 🤩
Reaction emojis (or reacjis) can be a good way to get a sense for whether employees are engaging with and reading internal comms. You could ask employees to add a ✅ to confirm they’ve read your post or a 💡 if they’d like to learn more about a certain topic. Emojis/ reacjis can sometimes have ambiguous meanings, and while it’s important to celebrate diverse perspectives in your organisation, it may be good to clarify the primary purpose of certain reacjis for your company. This reduces the potential for confusion, provides you with clearer feedback on internal comms and particularly helps those employees who are less confident with using reacjis. Another great reason to create an emoji cheat sheet for your internal communications!
5. Use emojis in employee polls 🗳️
You can conduct employee polls on Slack using emojis in a straightforward way. In your Slack post, include a question with different options below, giving each an emoji. Employees can choose their preferred option by adding a reacji to the post. Numbers are a simple way to label the options, but there are many other approaches you can take if you want to get more creative! When adding the emojis, use blockquote formatting to make the options easier to read.
6. Add custom emojis on Slack 🚀
Slack allows you to upload your own custom emojis to your workspace or choose emoji packs. Custom emojis are a good way to build your distinctive employer brand through internal comms in a more fun, informal way. To do this, select the 😃 button underneath where you draft messages on Slack. In the bottom left corner of the window which appears, click ‘Add Emoji’. A modal window will provide instructions on how to add custom emojis or emoji packs.
Get in touch with any questions or comments by contacting us! Canopact has released a real time feedback feature for its Slack app, which uses emojis 😎 and we’d love to have your feedback on this. Book a demo to see Canopact in action!
