Memes are now becoming native to social media platforms and content marketing, with more and more brands starting to engage in them. They are not only funny but also entertaining and easy to consume. Currently, they are the hottest content currency online and thus it’s high time your brand starts integrating this understated social media marketing strategy. Is everything worth producing on the internet capable of becoming a meme — Lockdown draining your energy? Express your frustration through a meme.
Here are a few ways to discover how your business can take advantage of memes to engage via social media marketing and connect with your audience:
- Understand your audience: Just like any other business strategy, the first step to creating a viral meme marketing campaign would be to thoroughly know and understand your target audience. For instance, if your business targets millennials, memes could be created around things they are interested in, like pop culture and trending movies. However, a word of caution -memes may not be the right platform if your brand focuses on an older and classier audience.
- Add creativity to popular memes: Certainly, you want to engage and attract your viewers with a few good laughs. However, do remember that you are marketing with memes and the main agenda for you would be to increase brand awareness. Since the majority of businesses are already sharing memes on the internet, it is vital to stand out from the crowd. This would require you to put in that extra time, energy and creativity. Once done correctly, this exercise would have a higher chance of being shared and liked.
- Keep up with the latest trends: Timeliness is one of the most critical elements when you’re marketing with memes. It acts as a deciding factor whether a meme has the potential to resonate with the audience or not! As a brand or business owner, you need to watch out for Facebook and Twitter trends to discover what people are talking about. If you manage to keep an eye and create a meme built on the most favored trends, at the right time, there are higher chances your meme will go viral.
- Use memes in the right place: To make your brand a meme machine it is also important to know the top spots to use them. Of course, social media is an evident choice but other practical places for memes are your website graphics and blog posts. These spots are relatively untapped and will give your business that extra edge against your competitors.
- Find memes that match your Brand Voice: Knowing your memes is vital to avoid making any embarrassing campaign mistakes. While most marketers are aware of what memes appeal to their audiences, it sometimes becomes difficult to incorporate them while still maintaining brand consistency. But as memes are gaining more ground, even high–end lifestyle brands have started implementing them to stay relevant and increase their following. Memes thus can expand your business reach remarkably, particularly if your target audience is a Millennial or younger.
As meme marketing continues to grow in popularity, there are a few points to be mindful about. Memes can sometimes be classified as rude or offensive, and therefore, businesses must walk a fine line when experimenting with this kind of strategy. It is imperative for marketers to first educate themselves on current memes so that they are well versed in the present marketing landscape. If they are unsure about the memes, they must test the waters gently with their audiences.
Numerous brands are using mems as an essential tool for their marketing strategy and like any creative process, our advice would be to trust your instincts on humor. If you don’t believe the meme you’ve designed is funny, compelling or intuitive, your audience probably won’t either. Make utmost use of your judgement and know that practice makes a man perfect – the more memes you consume, the better you’ll get at creating them. So go forth and meme it!!
