Meme Marketing- fad or here to stay?
Memes now are more popular than ever before. They first started on pages like 9GAG, Pubity and reddit. Memes were made for laughs and just having a good time on the internet. Of late major companies have incorporated memes as a marketing strategy. Companies like zomato, swiggy and netflix advertise a great deal of their company on social media sites using to promote their brand using memes.
Let’s look at the workings of the meme world and how you can further your digital ambitions with memes and take your page/company/brand to the greater audience by being creative and in-tune with the generation.
Understanding memes.
In its literal sense, meme was a term coined by Richard Dawkins and it means how an idea could spread and have a hold over popular culture. A meme can be a catchphrase, a GIF, a video/movie or just a picture which are shared for the purpose of its amusement.
They are shared on popular platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
In the sense of how gen z sees, the definition changes a little bit; “Memes are a lifestyle and art used by teens and adults who are willing to live a life that doesn’t include depression. Technically the main reason half the world has not committed die.”
What is meme marketing?
Although memes are made for a quick laugh, they help just the same in reaching out and communicating with the whole world. This opens a whole new realm for advertisement, communication and media to float through the world seamlessly.
What meme marketing precisely is, using pop-culture references to promote and advertise your brand/company. It is a fun, low-effort technique to connect with your audience.
It is one of the most powerful and engaging social media marketing strategy. With social media on a severe rise, thousands of companies and brands have completely changed their marketing strategies.
What are the benefits of using memes a marketing strategy?
The biggest benefit of using memes as a marketing strategy is that it is extremely easy to make and does not cost you a penny.
Aside from being able to make and create memes on a whim they also have a chance of going viral and blowing the internet like a lot of memes have. That is what every company and brand dreams of getting. Apart from bringing a lot of heat to your company, it also gets you a lot of traffic and engagement.
It makes your brand relatable. It speaks to the audience in a calm, casual and friendly manner. Some add a little a show and glitter or make it quirky, but it is all done to make it less robotic and more human.
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Getting it right.
Although, meme marketing sounds easy, they are a lot of factors that come into play when it comes to making it go viral;
- Timing- Just like a punchline, timing is key when it comes to posting your meme on a social media platform. They are different peak hours of traffic on different social media platforms.
- Type of audience- You have to be very careful with delivering or posting memes and you have to keep in mind the kind of audience that your company deals with.
If you show a meme of existential crisis and the weight of society on your back only millennials will get a laugh out of it but if you show a meme of your wife yelling at you, you will get laughs from the older generation.
- It should be related- The memes should be brand related (most times). Your memes should be brand related because, you might get a laugh from posting a meme but they will not have form of way of tracking back to your brand and engaging with your brand. It should be in support of your online identity.
- Do not be offensive- A lot of jokes are most times offensive but if your company posts something which is even mildly offensive to someone or a group of people, the company will then face a lot of backlashes from the population and sometimes even drives the company to the ground.
- Keep it simple- The millennials love simplicity or in their term’s “minimalism”. Try not complicating memes. Make them simple and easy to understand and grasp. Try not the be like Christopher Nolan and have the need to complicate everything. Everyone should be able to understand it.
Ideally memes are relatable, where it speaks to the crowd in a calm and friendly manner.
Comedy is an amazing way to foster relationships, friendships and lot of things in general. Using it to promote your company and make it go viral in a subtle and indirect manner would be a genius move.
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