Sharon

Implement emojis into your posts and pages. Using CSS, transparent PNGs seamlessly integrate with your favorite theme and color scheme.
This plugin shows emojis by using shortcodes. It will not override the default <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Smilies" title="WordPress Smileys" rel="nofollow ugc">Smileys</a>.
How To Use:
<ol>
<li>After activating this plugin, an emoji icon will appear next to your “Add Media” button above the editor window.</li>
<li>Click on that button to display the dropdown list of available emojis.</li>
<li>Click “Add Shortcode”, and the shortcode will automatically be added to your editor window.</li>
</ol>
Alternatively, you can type in your shortcode by hand using this format:
<pre><code>[sce emoji="happy" /]
</code></pre>

Sharon's Shortcode Emojis

Implement emojis into your posts and pages

Cople

TinyMCE Smiley Button

A nice to have would be to turn the text in the wysiwyg to a smiley. EG. :) <- Would turn into the smiley image after a space is added. A client of ours wants this functionality so i shall send relevant code to do so once i've figured it out. :)

Sharon's Shortcode Emojis vs TinyMCE Smiley Button