Emoticon characters are used to show expressions in a hard yet cute way, compared to the Emoji characters. To enable Emoticon keyboard on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, do as follows:
1. Open the Settings app and go to the General settings
2. Scroll down to the Keyboard settings and open it
3. Tap the Keyboards followed by the Add New Keyboard to add an emoticon keyboard to iPhone
4. Scroll down the alphabetical list of keyboards, and tap the Japanese keyboard and then tap the Kana keyboard. (For our purpose of adding emoticons to the text, the Japanese - Romaji keyboard will also do the job)
5. Now open the Messages app and start typing your message
6. Press and hold the Globe icon next to the Space bar to open the list of keyboards
7. Tap the Japanese keyboard to enable it
8. Tap the "^_^" icon in the bottom left, followed by the "^" icon and there it is: Emoticon characters are ready to be added to the text (see the image below)