The Effects of Emoji in Social Media Food Content: How Smileys, Hearts, and Hamburgers Affect Engagement, Attitudes, and Intentions

Emoji are frequently used in digital communication to convey or heighten emotions and visualize text. Despite the prevalence of online content about food and the crucial role of visuals therein, little attention has been paid to food emoji. This article presents three empirical studies that investigate the persuasive effects of emoji in social media food posts. The first two studies quantitatively analyzed a large corpus of Instagram influencers′ actual emoji use, finding that food and drinks emoji, while commonly used, do not significantly boost user engagement, whereas facial emoji (i.e., smileys) and emotional nonface emoji (e.g., hearts and certain gestures) do. The third study was an online experiment which examined emoji effects across generational cohorts. Depending on the type of emoji and the consumer′s age group, we found different effects of emoji on the persuasiveness of the communication. Results showed that food and drinks emoji complementing text improved attitudes towards the food and drinks in the posts as well as following intentions among older participants, but in fact negatively affected younger participants′ (Gen Z′s) attitudes and intentions. No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that emoji assist people with literacy challenges in message processing. The findings show that emojis can effectively express emotions and visually support text in social media food content, but also that their communicative effects are complex, in particular when targeting different age groups. This research has broader implications for digital (influencer) marketing and online communication aimed at persuading particular audiences.