Okay, first off: Credit for this tip comes from an 'iPad Today'/ TWiT podcast (which in turn came from one of their listeners).
Once you have an Emoji app or keyboard installed, you call also use them in the names of folders on the springboard. (For some reason I couldn't use the Emoji keyboard directly but had to C&P them into the folder names) ex. a folder that holds all your art apps could have the Emoji icon of a painter's palette in its name.
I'm still undecided if this is actually a helpful feature or not. Still, it does add a small sprinkle eye candy for non-jailbroken devices and usually causes a brief double-take when other iOS user's see it.