Storing emojis in MySQL
Do SHOW CREATE TABLE for one of the tables where you need Emoji.  It probably says 'utf8' on the columns and/or default for the table.  The columns must be utf8mb4.
ALTER TABLE tbl CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4;

Will blindly change all the columns to utf8mb4.  This is probably the action you need.
Also, the connection needs to specify utf8mb4.  Since I don't know what client you are using, I can't provide specific information.  If necessary, run this right after connection: SET NAMES utf8mb4;
Terminology:

&quot;character set&quot;, such as utf8 or utf8mb4 is the encoding for the characters.  This is where you are having trouble with storing Emoji.
&quot;collation&quot; is the ordering, such as whether 'a' &lt; 'b' and whether there is case folding to make 'a' = 'A'.  Collation may be important when comparing (WHERE) or sorting (ORDER BY).