Playing small pocket pairs from BB in unraised pot

[student_of_game]

Suppose that you are in big blind and pick up a small pocket pair (e.g., 22-55) and that there are about three to four limpers when the action gets to you.

I used to default auto-limp in this situation and play for set value. Recently, however, I've been raising in this situation (to maybe something like 8 or 9 times the big blind). I either pick up the pot pre-flop or with a continuation bet on the flop.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this approach of raising in this situation. I realize that there are a lot of considerations (e.g., relative stack sizes, opponent tendencies, etc,). Assume for this question that no has fewer than 40BBs and that you are relatively new to the table, so have no solid reads.