A harmless emoticon like this ◎ܫ◎, or an emoji like this 
does not work in wow text chat. There are also no ways to use emojis, and the closest thing to emotes we have is character emotes, which are being limited or removed by Blizzard. WoW is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, but its support for something simple like adding an emoji is weaker in-game than in this forum, let alone the rest of the industry. Being able to express ourselves in-game is a core part of how we socialize, so adding at least the option to add emojis/emoticons to the game’s main chat tools would open up many options for communication. It could even help mixed language groups, as emojis/emoticons can be a universal communication method combined with the tools already in game.
On a related note, it would also be nice if trade chat and other server-wide chat could be opt-in channels similar to guild chat, where anyone on the server can access them regardless of what zone they are in. It still makes sense to have regional channels, such as /1 and /3, be limited to zones. But for trade chat, a server-wide message board, it makes more sense that those communications be available anywhere on the server if players so choose. You could even integrate chat channels that are server-wide into the community’s toolkit. That would allow all players on a server to join a community server chat similar to trade chat but with it being easier to opt-in and out depending on player desires.
While we’re on the topic of improving trade, improving the UI for trade chat to have multiple subtopics would greatly improve the organization and readability of chat discussion. In most servers, trade is the center of social discussion outside of guild chats. Everyone talks about anything and everything on a single channel. This general discussion has a lot of benefits like discoverability, but it also comes at the cost of incentivizing people to talk over each other and other antisocial behaviours like spamming messages. By creating a server-wide community that is opt-in to join but invited when joining a new server, you would still have the sense of community that each server has. But it also allows for multiple subtopic channels to ensure that people looking for a guild and people wanting to talk about cream cheese bagels aren’t stepping over each other’s feet by trying to talk on the same single channel. It’s not a perfect solution by any means. I am curious to see if anyone has better ideas for creating a social community with less systemic toxicity. But I feel like even just having a discussion on community tools for the server and the social tools that underpin WoW would do a huge amount of work towards improving the community tools. Stuff like the New players and guide role is a great start for improving the social experiences for everyone. But with the focus on improving UI and core systems for Dragonflight, making improvements to the social systems in wow is one of the best ways to improve the player experience long term.