Meme marketing is one of today’s most effective social media marketing techniques. Meme marketing has changed hundreds of companies’ social media marketing tactics as social media continues to grow.
You can’t avoid the millions of memes uploaded every day, no matter which social media platform you use.
These memes, which began as inside jokes and are now utilized by companies to increase their social media following. And some even positioned themselves as brands with distinctive humor that made them original. These hilarious and witty memes made their followers coming back for more.
There are so many social media accounts and websites like @epicfunnnymemes, @memezar and @fuckjerry devoted to sharing hilarious memes with their followers since memes are so popular across all social media platforms
Many companies are increasingly using memes as their primary social media strategy due to its potential to go viral that boosts brand awareness. However, not all brand that employs them has been a massive success.
We will look at some significant memes to demonstrate the power of meme marketing and how companies are using this marketing approach and we hope by the conclusion of this article, you’ll understand what meme marketing is, why is it successful, and have the opportunity to create your own memes for your brand.
What Are Memes and How Do They Work?
Meme comes from the Greek word, “mimema” which means “imitated” and to put it in context, a meme is produced through the imitation of the lives of your target market. Most images capture the essence of a person’s emotion and everyday expression. That is why memes are very relatable and ignites a reaction to your consumers. It is often used as comment replies or a mundane status to express how they are feeling in a certain moment.
A meme is an idea, a joke, or a catchphrase that is circulated on the internet originally for entertainment and evolved through time as more people are inclined to use it based on their individual personalities and social media behavior. Most memes are in the form of a picture or a specific layout template but they may also be in the shape of videos, gifs or just plain words. Some can be a screenshot of a brand account’s witty reply that can turn into a nugget of shareable content.
Memes were already present since the early to mid-1990s when the world wide web was first becoming popular, and soon surged in popularity in the recent years and showed no signs of slowing down.
These memes often take on specific forms depending on humor, and they are remade and shared by other users to keep the trend going.
This owl was one of the first memes to gain popularity in the early 2000s, and it was often used as a reaction in online discussions.
What are the benefits of meme marketing for brands and why it is effective?
This section will offer you a head start on how you may seek to utilize memes in your marketing strategies, whether you’re a digital marketing agency or a client looking for ways to generate engagement on your social media postings for your brand.
Memes add relevance to your brand.
Since meme uses everyday expressions and slang languages, adding memes to your social media posting rotation gives your brand a sense of relatability to your audience.
Memes reflect your brand’s character.
Who doesn’t want to be entertained and have a good laugh once in a while? With a lot of negativity posted on social media today, a little meme posting for your brand balances out your consumer’s newsfeed. Your brand will appear warm and approachable to your audience.
Memes are shareable.
Since memes are simple yet very relatable, most consumers view it as light and shareable nuggets that is worth posting on their personal pages. Every person in any demographic has a commonality and that is their behavior of sharing positivity to their friends whether a witty joke or an interesting fact. Consequently, social media users get excited to share this epic piece of gem they found on their newsfeed to their friend’s list.
Memes are viral.
Because memes are normally shareable contents, they have the tendency to go viral and in effect your company will organically reach potential audiences that will know about your brand. Brand awareness may come in handy if you use your memes correctly.
Memes boost engagement levels.
People on social media nowadays are creative and because of this they always chime in to discussions that interest them. There will be a potential upward engagement if you produced a good meme and a possible effect is that social media users may add their own take on the meme you posted. They can even create their own memes inspired by your brand’s idea. Subtle engagements like this produces snow ball in terms of analytics and virality. This is crucial to your campaign outcome and might reach your advertising goals in no time.
While there are no hard and fast rules, always remember the benefits you will be reaping in case you include memes to your social media advertising campaign.
3 Factors to Consider in Creating Memes for Your Brand
1. Determine what your brand stands for Memes
Like any other social media approach, it must equate to your company’s fundamental values and message. If your company is all about openness and warmth, a crudely humorous meme will likely confuse and alienate your target audience. We suggest to tailor fit your memes to provide information that is appropriate to your company’s beliefs and target demographic. In meme marketing, knowing your target market well is your primary mission as it can make or break your campaign. You have to know their behavioral patterns, likes and dislikes, social media usage, location, ethnicity, class and age bracket.
You can check out these target market analysis examples from Brafton.com
This example of Gucci utilized on the use of funk and glamour to create a viral meme that also represented Gucci’s elegance and excellent taste.
If we will dissect this Instagram Post, it discussed the psychographics of the target market by having existential crisis. It might be subtle feelings of being left out or random sentiments of what to do with your life. These are some of the emotions or rather issues that keeps popping on the minds of the millennial generation. By that analysis alone, it encompasses the key demographic and psychographic of its target market. Not to mention that the character has an Aquagym at home, it indicates the level of purchasing power of the market that they are trying to capture. Another element that we should never miss is the subtle use of time as it uses a random ‘3PM’ – this pertains to people who might be well funded and doesn’t have to go to office every day, might be an heir, an entrepreneur or a young wife of a tycoon and that accurately speaks to the Gucci demographic. The key message is that if you have nothing to do and you have all these riches, I’ll have me some Gucci and smother my feelings with it. Put it all together and you’ll come up with an excellent approach to meme marketing. It gives that blurred sense of reality that turned out to be as superlatively relatable. It’s consummate, funny, remarkable and indeed brilliant.
2. Be approachable.
The memes you choose should represent a widely shared joke or a very relatable scenario. If your target demographic is unable to connect to the context, they will obviously not interact with you, and your brand image may suffer as a result.
Heads or tails?
It’s #FlipACoinDay!
Heads, you flip again and tails you watch #NoCountryForOldMen. https://t.co/SLv9Dqe06o pic.twitter.com/MfXTpWZg7B— Apple TV (@AppleTV) June 1, 2019
Check out this example from Apple TV on how you can mix relatability, product usage and being congenial as a brand. The usage of a pop culture scene reference of tossing a coin from the film No Country for Old Men is nostalgic. It reminds us of that feeling of happiness and innocence just like what we were as kids. The proper use of hashtag is eminent and by using this movie scene it automatically implies that the movie is available to watch on Apple TV.
3. Memejacking
Using memes linked to a powerful scenario is called Memejacking. A scene or an image that has piqued global attention is one of the most excellent methods to become viral instantly. Familiarity is the name of the game in this meme from KFC. They joined the “Bird Box” bandwagon shortly after Netflix released the film. They showed Sandra Bullock fighting for her life with a bucket of KFC metaphorically juxtaposing fried chickens to birds. It depicts wittiness and drives instantaneous attention that an effective meme should and always be.
Now that we’ve discussed what memes are all about pertaining to its usage and effectivity. Here are some examples of brands that are championing the meme game in the recent years. Hope you get inspired to create your own and rack up engagements on your social media postings.
Have a good laugh and brace yourselves for this epicness.
