Have you ever crafted the perfect text but not found the best emoji to really make your point? Wayzata-based company Phoji has launched an app that can help you out.
Phoji (the name is a combination of “photo” and “emoji”) is a messaging app that allows users to create a library of their own photos, saved in miniature, and insert those icons right into the sentence. “If you could do a custom emoji that was your own face, a real picture, a real mug of beer, wouldn’t that be a better way to use an emoji than those cartoonish ones?” Jon Christensen, CEO and president of Phoji, asks, adding that this style of texting can be done with the Phoji app.
While individual users can use Phoji for free, the company is marketing its unique communication platform to businesses as an alternative to texting. “We can make communication more personal, more expressive, more actionable both from a consumer-to-consumer perspective and from a brand-to-consumer perspective,” Christensen explains.
Phoji has approximately 100 to 150 active brands to which individual consumers can opt in to receive promotional messages; some local ones include Jake O’Connor’s Public House, Maynard’s, Minnesota United FC soccer club and the Marsh.
“Brands want to be able to market directly to your phone, they want to have a text message experience with you, the consumer,” says Christensen. “And they want to be able to send custom emojis, which, of course, is what a phoji is.”
You can download Phoji at the Apple app store or the Google Play store.
