We often hear that whatever content we consume should at least one out of these things – entertain, educate, inspire or motivate. Most of the time, it does more than just one thing. It may appear as if creating entertaining content is a piece of a cake, but in reality it can be very difficult to get it right.
This is where memes come into play. They are great tools to make your content humorous and witty. You can inspire your audience to engage with and share your content if you use memes in the correct way. In this blog, we’ll go over the six best practices for using meme marketing effectively.
When incorporating memes into your marketing strategy, it is crucial to adopt the appropriate tone. If you’re not careful about how you meme, your content may come across as out of touch, cringey, or even offensive.
Following are six best practises to follow:
Identify Your Audiences
Just like every content marketing step, you must first determine who you are speaking to. What does your target audience enjoy? What might they consider appalling or repulsive? What pop culture references do they recognise?
We recommend using customer analytics to learn more about your customers and letting that inform your content strategy.
Take a cue from this mind-blowing campaign by BarkBox.
BarkBox upped its marketing game by utilising memes into their product line. Their primary demographic is dog owners. And dog owners go crazy over dog memes (but so do all of us, right?).
Having said that, don’t shy away from trying new things. If something is truly popular and amusing, it might be more relevant to your audience.
Understand Your Memes
It is important to know the backstory of a meme and how it has become so popular. It will assist you in personalizing the meme for your brand that makes sense.
Before you hop on the train of a viral meme, you should be aware of two facts:
1) What makes it funny?
2) What is the context?
It can cost your company’s reputation if your meme is not only unfunny but also illogical. You can’t just make memes on anything that is trending. First, you need to establish the connection between the meme and your brand. Then, come up with a funny take on the meme that will be relevant for your audiences.
Don’t Think of Memes as Ads
However, as a general rule, meme marketing company is a part of the initial stage of the procurement process. Memes are an excellent way to develop trusting relationships with your target audience, increasing brand recognition, and developing a fun, familiar brand image.
The text of your meme should not be on the lines of “buy this product/service”, it will come off as insincere and will ward off potential customers. So, get away with sales jargon.
Instead, concentrate on creating clever, amusing memes that speak to real-life human experiences that are relevant to your audience.
Missed the limited window for a quick breakfast? Heart breaking. However, it is still understandable.
Whataburger may not say in this, “Come and buy our breakfast burger.”
That would not only be clumsy and unauthentic, but it would also be unnecessary. Whataburger asked their followers to think of a time when they wanted a breakfast burger but didn’t get one by using this relatable meme.
And bingo — they just rekindled their audience’s appetite for that breakfast burger.
Keep up with the times and act rapidly
Memes are the children of the Internet. So, like their origin place, they have a finite lifespan. You must know how to make the most out of them before they die down.
A few memes live longer when compared to others, but in general, you don’t want to share memes that are outdated and buried elsewhere. Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and even Reddit are the best platforms to find out what is viral and trending content.
When you see trending memes, act quickly. If you wait too long to publish this type of content, the conversations would have taken place despite your presence. If you strike the iron while it is still hot, the chances of higher engagement and more shares is more likely to increase. This, in turn, can result in more traffic on your website.
Make Sure Your Memes are Appropriate
Appropriate can take on different meanings based on what your brand represents. Let’s compare two brands – Pampers and Liquid Death Mountain Water. Both brands have different voices than one another. Even such brands, however, should avoid seriously offensive meme content.
That should not discourage you from creating something entirely unique, out of the box, or cheesy. It means your meme should never go after a particular group of people or be needlessly mean to them. You should follow the golden rule of ‘always punch up’.
It is also advisable to focus on light-hearted matters. Try to avoid depressing issues by making use of relatable topics… Unless you want to go for a grim, identity crisis vibe. For a certain type of audience only, this can be cathartic.
It is critical to find your own niche.
Memes should be used sensibly
Once you figure out how to create, you may want to keep making meme after meme.
But don’t go haywire.
Memes, like salt, add a little flavour to your brand image, but too many ruin the meal. Meme marketing should be one element of a bigger content marketing strategy, not the whole thing.
If you follow the ever-changing roadmap of popular online culture and follow these six best practices, you’ll be meming your way into your audience’s hearts (and wallets!) sooner than you thought.
Confused about where to start with your meme marketing? Check out our website for all the information you need on meme marketing.
