The best times to post based on engagement, how often you should post on different platforms to maximize your reach, the impact of replying to your comments, and much more: Julian Winternheimer has been busy!
But this is perhaps his most important analysis yet.
We give you:
✨ The most used emojis in social media posts in 2025. ✨
According to his analysis of millions of posts, these are the most used emojis in social media posts this year.
Okay, okay, it’s probably not the most important, actionable research we’ve ever done… and it probably won’t help shape your social media strategy the way all our other research has.
But it’s fun. And it’s also a fascinating snapshot of this moment on social media.
Is your most used emoji on the list? Mine is right at the top!
Before you ask, I know my overuse didn’t affect the data. Julian based this analysis on the number of Buffer users who used the emoji this year, rather than overall emoji usage. So people who are particularly attached to certain emojis, like me, didn’t have too much influence on the numbers.
The top emoji in social media posts in 2025
It wasn’t even a close race: ✨ Sparks dominated social media content in 2025.
More than 207,768 Buffer users used glitter in their posts this year, making it the most popular emoji by a significant margin. The 👉 pointing finger came in second place and was used by 131,783 users. That means the ✨ was 57.7% more popular than 👉.
In third place was another of my favorites, the 🔥 fire emoji, used by 125,665 users in 2025.
It’s not hard to see why ✨ was so much higher than the other top candidates.
Sparkles convey excitement, newness, or emphasis without feeling overly casual or emotional. That’s probably why it works everywhere, from LinkedIn posts to Instagram captions.
The full lineup: The top emojis used in social media posts in 2025
Based on our analysis of Buffer’s post data, here are the emojis organizations used most this year:
- ✨Sparkles
- 👉 Backhand index points to the right
- 🔥Fire
- ✅ Check mark button
- 💡Light bulb
- 🚀 Rocket
- 🌟 Glowing star
- 👇 Backhand index facing down
- 🎉 Party popper
- ❤️Red heart
- 📍 Round pushpin
- 💪 Flexed biceps
- 💬 Speech bubble
- 👀 Eyes
- 🔗Link
- 🚨 Police car lamp
- 🌿 Herb
- 🌍 Globe with Europe Africa
- 💥 Clash
- ✔ Check mark
- 📅 Calendar
- 🎯Cit
- ⚡ High voltage
- 🤔 Thinking face
- ➡ Arrow to the right
- 🙌 Raise hands
- 🧠 Brain
- 💫 Dizzy
- 💙Blue heart
- 🌱 Seedling
Isn’t it interesting that the most popular emojis aren’t the smiling faces or hearts that dominate consumer use?
The creators and brands that use Buffer’s social media content tend to be much more tactical.
Functional emojis dominate this list, drawing attention to emojis, and check marks indicate completion or approval. Fire signals something that is trending or important, while light bulbs introduce ideas.
These emojis look less like emotional expressions and more like visual punctuation: a way to direct the eye, emphasize key points, and structure information in busy feeds. Many of them are often used to draw attention to additional information, such as links.
As a writer, I found this really fascinating!
It’s worth noting that several of these emojis are also favored by LLMs, suggesting AI tools are being used to write captions and messages.
I couldn’t find any scientific analysis of the most commonly used emojis by tools like ChatGPT for a direct comparison. But an interesting one article about ChatGPT’s ‘style’ by The Washington Postwho analyzed more than 300,000 publicly shared messages by the chatbot, found that the most used emojis were ✅ the check mark button (#4 on our list) and the 🧠 brain emoji (#27).
Top emojis of 2025 by platform
It gets even more interesting when you break things down by platform. While ✨ Sparks won overall, each platform has its own emoji culture when it comes to professional content.
- ✨Sparkles
- 👉 Pointing to the right
- 🔥Fire
Instagram remains the most emoji-friendly platform – more users had emojis in their posts than any other platform – with glitter leading the way by a huge margin. The Instagram algorithm rewards visually appealing content, and emojis are part of that visual language.
- ✨Sparkles
- 👉 Pointing to the right
- ✅ Check mark
The fascinating thing about LinkedIn is how tight the race is between the top three. Users are clearly experimenting with the use of emojis on the platform and are finding ways to make professional content more accessible without sacrificing credibility.
TikTok
- ✨Sparkles
- 🔥Fire
- 👀 Eyes
The eyes emoji jumping to #3 on TikTok makes perfect sense. This platform is all about watch time and 👀 literally says ‘look at this’. Users who post on TikTok understand that they are competing for attention in a different way than on other platforms.
X/Twitter
- ✨Sparkles
- 🔥Fire
- 👉 Pointing to the right
The fast-moving nature of X means emojis need to communicate instantly. Fire and pointing emojis do just that: they convey urgency, importance, or direction without the need for additional context.
- ✨Sparkles
- 👉 Pointing to the right
- ✅ Check mark
Facebook’s emoji use reflects its role as the platform with the widest reach. Users stick with universally understood emojis that work across different age groups and contexts.
Wires
- ✨Sparkles
- 🔥Fire
- 👇 Point down
As the newer platform in the mix, Threads shows similar patterns to X, but with slightly more use of directional emojis.
YouTube
- ✨Sparkles
- 🔥Fire
- 👉 Pointing to the right
YouTube’s emoji use reflects its role as a community-building platform. YouTubers use glitter to highlight new uploads, fires to indicate trending content, and point emojis to direct viewers to links in descriptions or pinned comments.
- ✨Sparkles
- 👉 Pointing to the right
- 🔥Fire
Pinterest perfectly embodies the ‘sparkling aesthetic’ – the platform is all about inspiration and ambition, and ✨ captures that energy. Pinners use it to highlight beautiful images, DIY ideas, and valuable content.
Blue sky
- ✨Sparkles
- 👉 Pointing to the right
- 🎉 Party popper
The interesting thing about Bluesky is that the party popper 🎉 makes it to the top three. Bluesky is still quite new (although it has been released recently). reached the milestone of 40 million users), so I get the festive vibe.
Mastodon
- ✨Sparkles
- 👉 Pointing to the right
- 🎉 Party popper
Like Bluesky, Mastodon shows 🎉 in the top three, which makes sense for a platform built on community values and celebrating decentralized social media.
What changed in 2025
The chart above shows the ranking of the top 10 emojis month by month (we went through the data through the end of November). Looking at the emoji rankings over the course of 2025, a number of trends stood out:
Sparkles ✨ maintained its number 1 ranking consistently throughout the year. This emoji has essentially become the standard way to add emphasis or visual interest to professional content across platforms.
The biggest driver was the ✅ emoji. It started the year low in the rankings and finished at number 7. The fire emoji 🔥 saw some interesting fluctuations, dropping down the rankings in early 2025 before climbing back up.
The rocket 🚀 was also one that rose and fell throughout the year – it dropped from #2 in January to #9 in November (apparently people weren’t quite as ready for launch as the year went on).
Several emojis showed remarkable consistency, suggesting they have become a permanent part of professional social media language rather than trendy choices.
From feeling to function
My main takeaway from all these numbers is pretty clear: emojis are functional, not just decorative or expressive.
As a writer, I find it fascinating how we use emojis for formatting, structure, and punctuation, as well as to convey tone.
A secondary takeaway: In 2025, our posts all needed a little something extra ✨
#popular #emojis #social #messages