Introduction
The internet is obsessed with memes. And brands are slowly realizing the marketing potential of the millions of memes posted daily! Popular for their funny and unique humor, memes can help brands become more personal with their target audience and show their human side. Indeed, meme-driven social media marketing strategies can help brands go viral and increase their brand exposure. But, you need to understand the fundamentals of meme marketing to effectively capitalize on the marketing opportunity. To come to your rescue, we have compiled this extensive meme marketing guide that will help you get well-acquainted with memes and how these impact modern-day social media marketing. Let’s get started!
What are memes and meme marketing?
Memes are essentially jokes, concepts, catchphrases, and sometimes a template for the same. You got to pronounce it right though. It’s pronounced meem, not me-me. Memes are created for humorous purposes and usually contain a picture or a video coupled with text. The meme culture originated back in the 1990s when the world was getting acquainted with the internet. As internet penetration increased and the social media landscape proliferated, memes became a staple — showing absolutely no signs of stopping. The popularity of the meme culture is so high that internet users keep on coming up with new memes by re-making the jokes and making them highly relatable. People just keep coming up with new meme formats and templates every day. This makes it all the more important to stay up to date with the meme trends as they may impact your social media relevance.
How do memes impact social media marketing?
In an online world where people have only a few seconds’ worth of attention time, establishing a relationship with the audience is a massive challenge. Can memes solve the problem? We think it can. Let’s find out the benefits of meme marketing, shall we?
1. Inexpensive content strategy
Memes are quite easy to create as the templates are already available on social media platforms. Digital creators are always coming up with new ways to use memes and make them more relatable. All you have to do is modify the memes in a way that makes more sense to your target audience or industry. The magic is in using trending memes. Such memes have more chances of going viral. The memes also don’t have to be high-definition!
2. Ensures higher engagement
Internet users can’t live without memes. After all, this is a fun way of sharing ideas and emotions online. One of the most interesting benefits of using meme marketing is that it is easier to grab attention through memes. People might be scrolling through their news feed. But they will certainly take a couple of seconds to read and understand the meme. This is because memes are in trend and everyone wants to know what the joke is. Memes, in this way, help generate more engagement in the form of likes, shares, comments, and following. How to leverage engagement for your brand? Well, you can follow a 75/25 rule where 25 percent of the meme can be related to your brand or what you have to offer.
3. Helps reach more people online
Memes are a reach machine. Internet users love to share relatable memes with their networks. If you successfully create and share relatable memes, chances are your target audience will further share the memes and make them viral. The expanded reach is quite useful and can help reach a mass audience. Since the creative will be a part of your meme marketing campaign, it will help increase your brand exposure and presence.
4. High recall value
What things do you remember the most? Well, things that make a mark on your memory, isn’t it? Memes do precisely the same. Most memes touch base with events in our lives that make them more relatable, and memorable. Good memes are exceptionally great at grabbing our attention and making us stop scrolling. If you create great memes, chances are your target audience will recall your brand and potentially look at what you do and have to offer.
5. Memes are forever
Memes don’t die. They are there on the web forever. If you create a meme marketing strategy, the relatable memes you create will always be there for your target audience to consume. In other words, the meme marketing campaign will always entertain the audience. So, you should not be asking about the ROI of creating a meme marketing campaign. We suggest you create a highly effective meme marketing strategy to generate memes that will last forever. This will ensure that the memes are relevant in the coming years as well.
How to use memes in a marketing strategy?
Now that you are well-acquainted with what meme marketing has in store for you, it’s time we understand what it takes to develop a fine meme marketing strategy. We have shortlisted some of the best tips you should use when creating a meme marketing campaign. Let’s discuss them in detail.
1. Understand your audience
How well do you know about your target audience? It is important that you know what kind of meme content will match the understanding of your ideal buyer. Indeed, it is a very conventional marketing tip. But, you don’t want to end up creating memes that are not at all relatable to your audience. Relevance is followed by engagement.
2. Develop a brand voice
Memes aren’t just for entertainment purposes. It has a deep meaning attached that helps the audience learn more about your brand’s personality. In other words, memes are a means for showing what your brand stands for. We suggest you harness the power of trending memes by ensuring that the meme is authentic to your brand. This is the best way to showcase your brand voice and personality.
3. Eliminate offensive ideas
Meme marketing is fun marketing. So, the intention of developing a meme marketing campaign should be to spread humor and entertain. Brands should refrain from creating offensive memes as these might backfire and create unnecessary controversy. After all, you don’t want memes to decrease your brand value and credibility. Also, make sure your design team has the right guidelines regarding brand values and morals.
4. Double down on simplicity
Remember, memes that take the audience more than three seconds to understand are no good to you. Memes will definitely grab attention. But a complicated meme will only leave the audience confused, even angered. You don’t want your complicated meme to disturb the audiences’ experience on the social media feed, do you? So, make sure you simplify things to make the meme easily understandable. Plain and simple memes get the most laughs!
5. Invest only in viral trends
Indeed, meme marketing is inexpensive. But, you don’t want to dive into the sea of memes as there are so many memes to work on! Therefore, we suggest you stick to viral meme trends only. Such memes are already bringing in high online traction and will deliver the same for your meme marketing campaign.
6. Don’t overdo with memes
Here’s a tip you will not regret. As marketers, we try to do things that seem to bring in results. Memes will get you the desired engagement. But you shouldn’t overdo meme marketing. Make sure your social media profile isn’t only filled with meme content. After all, memes don’t provide brands with a professional outlook.
Is meme marketing the future?
It surely does look like that. We have seen many brands capitalizing on memes to boost engagement on their social media posts and ads. It seems like marketers have unlocked a sure-shot way to connect with internet users by reflecting a more humorous side of modern-day brands. The best thing about meme marketing is that it is extremely cost-effective. Content creators are always coming up with new memes every day, so you’ll never run out of ideas. We suggest you give meme marketing a shot and track campaign results before jumping to conclusions. Did you find this guide helpful? Let us know in the comments. Also, don’t forget to check out other informative posts on the blog!
