Social media has popularized humorous images or funny textual images as memes. Since these are enjoyable content, people are likely to share them with their peers. Brands are leveraging the rapid spread of memes and meme generators and working on ways to capitalize on the trend for their marketing benefits. Here, we shall discuss all that you need to know about using memes for marketing.
Why Use Memes
Before we talk about how to use memes in social media marketing, you need to first understand the benefits of incorporating memes in your marketing strategy.
It is Inexpensive to Create
There is immense competition in today’s social media scene, and brands need to be consistent with their content posting. For smaller brands, it is challenging to come up with an original image or video content all the time.
With memes, you can use existing online resources and refurbish them by adding a tacky caption. The fact that meme lovers value low-resolution, self-created content is something that works in favor of marketing professionals on a tight budget.
It Establishes a Sense of Community
Memes are relatable humorous content and the people who associate themselves with the content develop a feeling of brotherhood. When someone else relates to the same thing as you, it is natural to feel connected to the individual. As a brand, you can leverage this community feeling to build credibility among your followers.
Memes Are Shareable and Relatable
Memes often include catchy music or absurd visuals. People find these enjoyable and are likely to share them with their peers. By recommending a meme to a friend, an individual expresses allegiance to your brand and becomes your ambassador to the community. The brand recall value of such memes is also significantly higher than any other form of content.
Memes Give a Humane Face to a Brand
A look at some of the most popular memes would reveal that they are related to a contemporary or cultural event. By associating your brand with current affairs, you make yourself appear modern and real in front of your target group. When you get your target community to come around a common touchstone, it becomes easier for you to strike an emotional chord with the audience and establish a brand familiarity.
Tips to Use Memes
Now that you are aware of how you stand to gain from the meme game, we are sure that you are eager to incorporate memes in your marketing strategy. Here are some tips that will help you in meme marketing.
Ensure that the Meme Reflects your Brand Voice
The beauty of memes is that they use social commentary, satire, or nostalgia to strike an emotional chord with the audience and get them to laugh. Make sure that the memes you promote on your brand page are insightful and do not suggest anything that conflicts with your brand values. While invoking humor, you need to be careful that none of it is rude to any group or community.
Spend time evaluating your user taste such as the type of content they consume, their choice of music, TV shows, etc. That way, it will be easier for you to divisive your memes and go for niche positioning. If you are authentic and not overly conservative in your posts, it will help your memes connect with the audience.
Repurpose Existing Memes
If you are low on resources, repurposing existing memes is an excellent way of getting online popularity. Spend some time on social media to identify memes that are trending and see if you can add a twist to them. If you are new to meme-making, one of the safest memes is when you spin a popular media piece to give your followers a delightful moment.
A look at the popular memes would reveal that many of them stem from viral YouTube videos. Thus, we recommend that you keep up with the highlights of the viral YouTube videos if you are keen on refurbishing fresh content.
Create New Memes
Like every other form of content, originality is a quality that is highly valued even in the world of memes. If you have a cute toddler or pet, you can record their expressions and make them into a meme. Sometimes, you may unintentionally capture a funny clip. You can make it into a short, looping meme video or take still images off it and prepare a meme.
Today, the world of memes is diverse, and you can have captured photos, videos, GIFs, and screenshots. It is a good idea to experiment will all the different types of meme content to identify the one that works the best for your brand.
For the textual content of your meme, try to use Montserrat or Helvetica Nune. These are styling that people associate with funny content. If you are keen on experimentation, you can go for Comic Sans or Arial as well. In either case, try to use emojis, rounded corners, and embedded text to give a meme-like feel to your content.
Value the Content Given by Your Audience
As you establish your brand identity, you will find stumble across several user-generated memes that are relevant to your brand. Reach out to the user and confirm if they are comfortable with you resharing the content. Since memes are created to be shared, the users will give you the go-ahead. You will then have shareable content ready at a minimal cost.
Another acceptable approach is when you screenshot Twitter content and make it into a meme. However, make sure that the account name of the original content creator is included in your screenshot.
Thus, you see that the journey of making memes is fun as well. You just need to be on your toes to ensure that your memes do not hurt any group or community. When you create memes for marketing purposes, you spread joy while working towards your corporate goals. Indeed, this is a win-win situation for marketing professionals. As you look to have memes as a part of your marketing journey, we hope that the tips discussed in this article were helpful to you.