Making use of meme content in your social media marketing creates a sense of community, but it also increases the ability to engage as memes are shareable and relatable, and it allows people to connect through humour.
What makes memes great is how they can be used to create inside jokes with your audience. It allows your audience to feel part of the family, thus creating a sense of community. Not only that, but they are also entertaining. This gives you the opportunity to create brand related content that is entertaining, easy to make, and costs you nothing.
However, sometimes when companies make use of meme content it can come off as cringe worthy to the youth. Meaning that there is a fine line that you should avoid overstepping. Here are some ways to ensure that your content is up to date, keeping up with the trends, and creates engagement.
Know your audience
Before you run off to some meme making site, it is important to first understand your audience. If you have a younger audience this might be the best opportunity to incorporate memes into your content. If you have a corporate audience it would be best to prevent using memes on your social content.
One way to see who views your content is through making use of Facebook’s Market Insights tool that can allow you to see the demographics of your audience. This will assist you in creating content even if you aren’t looking at creating memes. Instagram has a similar function and should be made use of by businesses to ensure the best content for their audiences.
Make sure the memes match your brand’s voice
Once you have made sure of your follower demographics it makes it easier to create content that will entertain them. It will allow you to see what type of memes your audience enjoys. However, creating memes as banding content can be a tricky task. The one thing that you should remember is that the memes that you create should still match the overall voice of your brand.
Barkbox is a good example of a brand that uses memes to target their audience, create inside jokes, and create engagement opportunities. The memes they use are created for their pages and it fits with the overall tone of their business. The post below makes use of a Tweet from @dog_rates and they then relate it back to their content. These posts gain many followers and likes. Be like Barkbox and use memes.
Purpose existing memes
Creating memes can be a daunting task, as it creates uncertainty and especially because you don’t want your content to be cringe. The best way to do this is to make use of existing memes until you feel confident that you are able to understand them and create your own.
There are multiple ways in which you can reuse content. Like the example above, you can make use of a relevant Tweet to post as your meme. Then, you can make use of meme creating sites that give you examples and facilitate the creation of memes.
Sites like Imgur allow you to create memes for free. They make use of the most popular templates and they also give you suggestions on what type of text should be included on the image. It is an easy tool to use as they already position the text of the meme in the right place and you simply have to fill in the top and bottom texts.
Create original memes
If you are comfortable with creating memes and you start to understand the type of content that your audience will enjoy, you can start creating your own memes. Making memes are simple, and you don’t even need an expensive image editor to do so. Even your built-in photo editor can be used to create memes.
It is then important to understand what makes a meme a meme. Once you understand how a meme should look and what it should contain, then making branded memes will be easy. Examples of this include Chipotle’s Twitter page. It is filled with Tweets that look like GenZ created them as well as unique branded memes.
This sparks engagement amongst their followers, but also creates a sense of community. Chipotle has always been known for their woke content and they have built their brand on it. It also creates the opportunity for them to have partnerships with influencers and celebrities.
Stay relevant
Staying relevant is the most important aspect of creating meme content. Memes gain popularity overnight, but they also lose popularity quickly and can be seen as cringe content. You might receive comments like “ok boomer” and will be made fun of if your content isn’t keeping up.
To keep up with trends it is best to follow all of the popular meme pages on Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram. Don’t be afraid to jump onto new trends and especially don’t be afraid to steal memes. That is just how it is around here. Just make sure to rebrand it and change the text to suit your voice.
Epic Reads does exactly this by making use of popular memes to resonate with their audience. They use memes that are focused on reading, shipping characters, and just bookworms in general.
Repost relevant memes
Part of staying relevant is reposting relevant memes. Internet culture allows you to steal memes and report them. Generally the stealing of memes are encouraged because it ensures that the creator’s meme goes mainstream. You just need to make sure that you do it in a tasteful manner and legally.
Running World reposted a swear jar meme and just changed one word to “running”. This is considered as legal as they changed the meme to suit their needs. It also generated a lot of engagement.
React to recent cultural phenomena
By reacting to recent cultural events you show that you are relevant and keeping up with meme culture. There are many trends and cultural phenomena that lend you the opportunity to create memes around it, but also to ensure you get a cut of the pie.
For example, recently there is a TikTok trend where influencers stack crates in the shape of a staircase and try to see who can get to the top. KFC jumped on the trend by creating a post where they commented that for the TikTokers safety that they should rather stick to the bucket challenge. This post then combines two trends.
The most important thing to remember when making use of meme content is that the popularity of memes move at the speed of light, and trying to keep up with the latest trends can be hard. Therefore, if you do want to start making use of memes for your brand, make sure that you post on a daily basis and that you don’t have to go through an approval process to get the content up. The Internet is a fast paced world and if you struggle to keep up, you can be seen as cringe.
Because of the popularity of memes it will allow your business to stand out amongst the crowd, but also attract the right audience. It is a creative way to showcase your brand’s voice, but also to create feel-good content.