How To Add Emojis to your Tik Tok Video

Posted by Jamie on June 11, 2019

The world of TikTok is huge and varied and covers just about every subject imaginable. If you’re beginning to create videos, you can add character or emphasis with emoji. Just like in text messages, emoji help convey a message and can be added as a layer in your creation alongside your performance. This tutorial will show you how to add emojis to your TikTok video.

Emoji suit the teen audience of TikTok perfectly. While they are used universally among all age groups, nowhere do you see more emoji in communication than with teens. Even someone as old as I can see the utility and power of emoji and if I can, anyone can.

If you want to add emojis to your TikTok videos, read on.

Adding emoji to TikTok videos

Emojis are added as a layer to your video in post-production. You record your video as normal and then add emoji as a layer afterwards the same as you would stickers. The actually process of adding them is simple but planning the video in your mind when recording it in order to refer to the emoji or fit them in is much more difficult!

To add emoji to a video, do this:

  1. Open the TikTok app.
  2. Create a video and plan where you want your emojis to appear.
  3. Select the red tick icon in the bottom right of the screen.
  4. Select the smiley icon at the bottom of the new window to access stickers.
  5. Select the Emoji tab at the top of the window to access the emoji list.
  6. Select an emoji from the list and it will appear in your video.
  7. Drag and drop the emoji where you want it to appear on your video.
  8. Repeat for as many emoji as you want to see in your video.
  9. Complete your video as you normally would.

There are three icons around each emoji, an X, a timer and a double arrow. The X removes the emoji, the timer sets a time for it to appear on screen and the double arrow is to resize the emoji to make it larger or smaller.

To use the timer, select the icon by the emoji and you’ll see a timeline appear at the bottom. Use this to configure when and for how long each emoji will appear in your video. Select the checkmark once done.

TikTok uses the standard range of emoji you see on your phone or in other apps. They contain the usual mix of faces, characters, foods, items, buildings, forms of transport and more. They are the universal range so should be instantly familiar.

Recording the video with emoji

As I mentioned earlier, the actual process of adding the emoji is the easy bit. Planning what emoji to use and where to put them in the video is the hard bit. Then recording the video while simultaneously performing and leaving space for the emoji to fit is even harder! It will take practice but you can do it.

Much depends on what you’re doing with the emoji. If you’re just adding them for interest then it may be enough just to leave some space in the frame above your head or each shoulder to add emoji. If you’re planning to use them as part of your performance, that’s more difficult.

Lots of TikTokers use emoji and use gestures to involve the emoji in their performance. This does take practice and the ability to divide your concentration. Part on the performance and part on visualizing how you look on screen and where the emoji would go. It’s a skill I don’t have but am sure you could develop if you don’t have it already.

Try not to use too many emoji at once as it can be distracting. Using a couple to emphasize something in your video or add a creative flourish is often more powerful than flooding your screen with a confusing mess of color and animation. This is one of those times where less really can be more!

If you look at some of the top performing videos that feature emoji, they stick to a couple at a time on screen. This is a good way to go. You can replace emoji with others using the timer function but keeping the numbers to a sensible level means you’re still the star of the show and not the emoji.

Got any advice for using emojis in your TikTok videos? Want to share a favorite video that uses emoji? Tell us about it below if you do!

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