no more smileys please!

#rantalert (Just in case the heading was not clear enough).

Nothing puts me off more in reading emails than the ones that have smileys on the subject. It’s just… No.

They are fun and colourful in the body text. Don’t add them to your subject. It strikes me as a terribly desperate call for attention. I may as well have my teenage daughter writing and I would get the same feeling.

I like smileys, you may have seen a few of mine. Don’t get me wrong. But on the subject it just does not look professional. It looks childish. All in moderation. I find that it’s ok to have the odd one, if it helps to make a point or to help building a mental image.

This seems to be a growing trend, where most emails in my inbox have smileys on the subject. Even Hubspot fell for this. It’s just vulgar.

If you want your customers/readers to see you as an expert, an authority in a matter, smileys don’t do you any favours. On the contrary, I find that it lowers your credibility.

Little rockets, megaphones, microphones, light bulbs… No. I understand that we want our correspondence to be interesting but the fact that it lacks colours doesn’t always mean it is boring.

What you don’t want is for your communications to come across like a Primary School newspaper. In my opinion, it can become tiring to your eyesight.

Before using them ANYWHERE ask yourselves:

• Are they really necessary?
• Do they help making your point?
• Is that all you’ve got?
• Are you that bad in writing?

Straight smileys overload = Straight DELETE.