What Exactly Is Marketing With Memes?
Memes have grown in popularity over the last few years. They’re funny images with distinct styles and concepts spread across the internet. By appropriating popular memes, businesses can engage their followers and reach a new audience. Marketing memes use memes for marketing purposes, such as promoting a brand, educating a target audience, or improving a brand’s reputation. Memes have evolved into cultural currency in the digital age and can be found on all social media platforms. They are short pieces of content with images and text intended to be consumed quickly. But can memes be used for marketing? This article discusses memes, how to use them for marketing, and what to avoid if you try this content marketing strategy.
Why can memes benefit your company?
Our users don’t typically use social media or the internet to look for products or services; instead, they use it to relax and have fun. Our job is to reach out to them and persuade them with our marketing strategy, but what if we try too hard?
We are perceived as “needy,” and the only thing we can do is keep them away from our company.
Potential customers will quickly tire of seeing only “advertising content” because your creations aren’t rich enough. Read this guide to increase website traffic and attract more relevant customers.
You’ll get a funny laugh from your audience at first, but after that, they’ll see you as a relatable entity. You’re humanizing your brand, and they’ll identify with it and use it as a reference.
If you are relatable, people will see your company as an excellent friend who can solve their problems, chat, and laugh about everyday things. If you’re still not convinced that this marketing strategy is for you, consider the following:
- You can create memes in any design app or go to Giphy to create your own.
- The main idea behind memes is to share them with friends to share some laughs. Users will forward it to others if yours is amusing enough, allowing you to reach new customers or markets.
- Humanize your company: As previously stated, sharing memes shows your customers that you want to communicate with them more regularly, not just about business.
- Generate immediate feedback: If your meme elicits the desired reaction, you can expect a flood of instant comments and feedback about your brand.
Memes Are Required for Your Marketing
Memes are as much about connection as they are about humor. They can create online communities, albeit for a limited time. Consider the Bernie Sanders mittens meme from last year. It allowed people to feel happy, laugh together, and serve as a social outlet during a politically turbulent period.
Indeed, brands want to evoke a similar emotion. Creating humorous images regularly and capitalizing on trends can assist in engaging the audience, creating a sense of association, and inspiring brand loyalty.
Here are four reasons you should start practicing your meme-making skills immediately.
Memes Humanize Your Brand
Nowadays, brands take a more relaxed approach to customer communication, often using a casual tone. Few have taken things a step further by incorporating some sass. This is done to make the brand appear less robotic and more human.
Customers must understand that you do not represent a stuffy corporate entity but something much more lively. Memes come into play here. Nothing lets a brand’s humanity shine through like humor.
Memes Can Assist You in Going Viral
A marketer fantasizes about creating content that will spread like wildfire from screen to screen. However, with standard promotional posts on social media, it is challenging to realize this dream. Once again, marketing with memes gives you the ideal opportunity to accomplish this.
Memes generate immediate feedback.
Memes appeal to marketers for all of the reasons stated above. Their sole purpose is to become viral, which every brand has discussed since the advent of social media.
There are no guarantees here, and most memes die out quickly. However, brands should view this as a learning opportunity rather than an excuse to abandon memes. Marketers can use memes to generate instant feedback from their audience as long as the meme attempt is not disastrous (examples will be provided later).
Memes are inexpensive and easy to create.
Internet memes have a rustic charm to them. Anyone can participate by adding text to classic memes using sites like Meme Generator.
Brands can use memes created by others in their marketing campaigns, but making your memes more effective if you intend to use them in marketing is more effective. Marketers must work a bit harder to capitalize on cultural trends.
Should you market with memes?
Brands must understand that memes will only help them achieve specific marketing goals. Users will be immediately turned off if they receive a sales message. This raises similar concerns to those raised in our Reddit marketer’s guide. The key is to read the audience’s pulse and join in, contributing something to the moment. Brands that get it wrong detract from the mood and suffer.
On the other hand, memes can be used as part of a serious strategy.
Keep the following tips in mind as you incorporate memes into your marketing strategy:
Keep up with pop culture: You must stay current with current trends; timeliness is the lifeblood of a viral meme.
Show some self-awareness: If you want to push a brand message, use humor to deflect attention and demonstrate a human side.
Find the right channel: Memes are everywhere, from Snapchat to LinkedIn, but they vary in format and tone depending on the platform. TikTok memes, for example, frequently include music as an extra element.
Maintain a professional tone: It is critical to maintain a professional manner even when participating in a social media challenge. Customers expect the brand to act following its established identity.
Investigate your target audience’s preferences: Before launching a meme strategy, use social media advertising tools to identify these cultural preferences.
Participate in trends and challenges: They guarantee visibility because they are already viral. Just make sure you spend that money wisely.
Make a meme library: The same memes keep appearing, and their familiarity is comforting. Maintain a meme library and quickly adapt the text when an idea strikes.
How to Do Meme Marketing Correctly?
Memes add a unique flavor to your marketing and are simple to create. However, this does not imply that you can create one and expect a massive influx of visitors the following day.
You should plan ahead of time before jumping on the meme bandwagon. Memes are an excellent way to get people talking about you. Ineffective memes will either go unnoticed or make your brand appear desperate and out of touch.
The five most significant aspects of meme marketing that you should never overlook are as follows:
- The most critical factor is timing.
Like a well-crafted punchline, a meme is delivered at the right time. It would be best if you took advantage of a popular trend. Keep an eye on what’s going on on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter.
Make a funny meme about a current topic, and you’ll quadruple your chances of going viral. For example, during the Godzilla vs. Kong craze in February, the internet was flooded with memes depicting the two fictional titans battling it out.
- Don’t show up unprepared.
When delivered to the right audience, comedy works best. Showing a millennial a comic strip with “husband and wife” jokes will only elicit disapproval. On the other hand, an older generation would probably enjoy that type of humor.
Before telling a joke, consider your audience’s age, cultural background, race, and socioeconomic class. Just because you’re marketing with memes doesn’t mean you should do it on the spur of the moment.
- Be Approachable, Creative, and Indirect.
Memes function in a specific way. Someone in a remote corner of the internet devises a humorous format. Frequently, the material comes from a movie, TV show, news, or something else that is currently popular. People add their creativity to this format, and thousands of memes have been shared within a few hours.
Among these, the most relatable and creative memes stand out. Being indirect is the third and most crucial ingredient in this brand recipe.
- Maintain Meme Consistency with Your Online Identity
A viral meme will help you gain traction on social media for a limited time. However, for your meme marketing efforts to yield longer-term results, the content must support your online identity.
- Don’t be in a hurry.
Let’s be honest. Nothing is more irritating than forced humor. You’d be compelled to participate in popular meme formats as a marketer. But if you can’t think of anything funny, it’s sometimes better to let it go.
Similarly, please don’t force your brand into popular trends where it doesn’t belong, or you risk having people laugh at you rather than with you.
Marketing has evolved dramatically over the years. Brands can no longer afford to be solely promotional; they must also be relatable. You must genuinely connect with your audience if your goal is to sell products or services.
Comedy is a great way to start conversations, foster relationships, and promote your brand and whatever you offer. Meme marketing is a less obvious and more indirect promotional strategy.
Who can say? Maybe you can build a strong brand identity one meme at a time. The options are limitless.
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