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Jan 19, 2022
As a marketer, you're almost always expected to create relevant, innovative, and engaging content to catch your audience's attention.
And, what better way to do that than through memes!
Memes can communicate a lot with only an image and a few words. They are funny, entertaining, and sharing them can make your brand relatable.
It's also a great way to connect with your audience deeper, more personally.
Additionally, memes can be a great source of refreshing content that has the potential to make you go viral.
Memes are everywhere, from social media platforms to websites and even articles! So, we definitely think you should add it to your content marketing strategy.
Whether you're in marketing or not, you're probably familiar with memes. In fact, we bet you've seen or shared at least a meme or two in the last 24 hours!
In this post, our experts at digital marketing in Miami will discuss five things you should know first before you use memes in your marketing strategy.
We're not going to keep you waiting any longer.
Let's get started!
An internet meme, often known simply as a meme, is an idea, habit, or style that rapidly spreads over the internet, most frequently via social media platforms.
They're incredibly humorous and trendy.
Initially, memes are just images with text. But, over time, they evolved into videos and GIFs too!
Internet memes are seen as a native component of the Internet culture. They're spread from one person to another through social media, blogs, direct email, or news sources.
Now that you know what memes are, it's time to discuss the five things to consider before using them for your business.
"To meme or not to meme?" That is the question.
Our experts at digital marketing in Miami are big believers that everything and anything can be turned into a meme. We could even imagine creating viral memes for a plumbing company.
However, one thing to bear in mind is that memes are not for everyone.
Despite your best intentions, memes have the potential to be divisive and insulting. So, it's essential to be cautious when using one.
Memes can sometimes come off as insensitive and offensive. Remember, the internet is a harsh world. If the netizens see you attempting to be funny out of context, they will be unforgiving.
If people like your memes, you'll see it in your engagement metrics. If they don't like them, they'll tell you right away.
Do it well, or don't do it at all, is what we're saying.
So, if ever you decide to use memes for marketing strategy, you have to be very careful and take your brand personality into account when creating memes.
You want every piece of content you publish to remain true to who you are and consistent with your brand tone and voice.
It's how you can ensure that your memes resonate with your target audience.
You also want your memes to be inclusive. This should be reflected in the images you use and your choice of words.
Another technique to prevent making your memes offensive is to use websites such as Know Your Meme. Using this tool will help you grasp the original context of a meme before publishing it on your business posts or profile.
One thing that you can be grateful for is that the meme creation process is inexpensive.
There are a lot of existing images on the internet you can use to make your very own meme – for free!
You don't have to do any crazy studio set up to develop a new meme content or possess advanced graphic design skills. All you have to do is reuse existing photos or Gifs and give it your own spin. This means creating a viral meme is almost always possible.
In short, anybody can create a meme!
However, to successfully use memes to promote your business, you need to know what resonates with your ideal customers.
You see, there are different types of memes out there. Some are dark-humored, while some are very niche-specific.
So, you need to identify who your target audience is to develop memes that will put a smile on their faces and put your brand at the top of their minds.
Here are a few places where you can start making your own memes:
Once again, all you need is a photo and a witty caption. (wink)
To get people to appreciate your meme, make sure it's relevant to the masses. You need to incorporate pop culture references that your audience will recognize straight away.
These cultural artifacts may include movie props, political photos, viral video snippets, old advertisements, and nearly anything else that can fit into many meme situations.
The more familiar your reference, the more people will be able to connect to it.
Fortunately, the internet is a pretty huge space that can help you in your meme creation mission.
When a piece of content circulates through the many circles of the world wide web several times, it generally becomes a pop culture symbol and gains recall value. This is also why most memes use the same set of content templates.
Memes are built on the same underlying idea applied to multiple circumstances, such as a famous movie still or a hilarious comment from a celebrity that made worldwide news.
However, just like the law of diminishing returns, this shortens the lifespan of memes. Memes, like jokes, have just one opportunity to make an impact on your audience.
After a while, they kinda get dull and lose their power to get your audience laughing.
Our advice is to avoid reposting the same meme to the same audience many times. It turns people off and can make your brand appear lazy or unimaginative.
Don't be frightened to make your own meme templates from scratch. You don't need to go overboard with graphics or image quality.
As you may have noticed, most memes have terrible image quality or fonts. But that's OK. It's all part of their charm. Just make sure your memes are still legible, though.
Many companies believe that meme marketing consists of taking an empty meme template, throwing a quotation or phrase on it, and voila —comedy.
You don't meme like that!
Making a meme is not the same as creating content for your blog. A good meme must be effortlessly comedic, sarcastic, satirical, or ironic.
But here's the thing. If making people laugh isn't your forte, don't push it. You don't want your memes to look forced or unnatural because that's not appealing or entertaining at all.
In any case, many memes on the internet do not include hilarious content anyway. Some of them contain hard truths, while others are very political.
It's OK if you don't have the innate capability to create memes. You can always find existing memes that may not necessarily promote your company but appeal to your specific demographic.
Memes are legally protected by copyright. This signifies that the meme creators hold exclusive rights to their memes.
Although it may not seem so, reusing a meme violates copyright law, whether publishing or sharing.
Unless the picture is a Creative Commons graphic or is in the public domain, it's reasonable to presume you don't have the legal right to distribute it.
It is also very unusual for the owners of these photographs to demand restitution for their usage.
However, in 2018, Grumpy Cat Limited sued Grenade Beverage for exploiting the cat's popular image without permission to sell their new cappuccino drink (due to be named Grumpy Cat Grumppuccino).
The company prevailed, and the action was regarded as the first to lay the groundwork for suing for damages based on copyright and licensing concerns with memes.
Of course, the internet is a big place! So finding every instance of a protected picture being used might be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Nevertheless, if you're determined to use memes in your marketing, it's crucial to make sure that the photos you use are free for all to use.
Memes are sweeping over the globe, and practically every company wants to try them out. However, you must do it right so that you don't come out as trying too hard or out of touch.
Hopefully, you will consider the things we have discussed in this article before you use memes for advertising your business.
And if you've considered them and want to start using memes in your next ad, let Digital Resource help you.
Contact us today for a free consultation.
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