Meme Marketing: What is it and How to use it?
What is it that everyone loves and that makes us smile or laugh? A meme. These funny images are now spread all over the Internet and have revolutionized how we communicate on online channels and how we sell. Have you ever heard of meme marketing?
That’s right. Humor is a great sales tool, according to humorist and screenwriter Jon Selig. And memes are the most feasible way to apply humor marketing, as they are easy to make and can connect with hundreds of people. In this article, we’ll delve deeper into meme marketing, so if you love humor, read on!
What is Meme Marketing?
Let’s start with the first thing. Meme marketing is an advertising strategy based on using viral memes to promote brands, products, or services. The key is to take advantage of the popularity of the image or video to capture attention and generate interaction with the target audience.
For example, do you remember when the Barbie movie came out, and the networks were full of posts with the Barbie filter, or when MrBeast raffled money, and brands used the image of your publication as a meme to carry out their sweepstakes? And many even used the Cheems dog meme to compare their products with other brands.
Objectives of Meme Marketing
In meme marketing, brands adapt existing memes and create content that is aligned with their values and objectives. But what can be the objectives of using meme marketing? Here are a few:
Engagement: If you are a company, engage with your users. They may have many questions before they use your services. In addition to customer feedback, you can create jokes and memes to make clients feel free and confident. Thus, using humor and the emotional connection that memes evoke in the audience can promote a brand in a relevant and entertaining way.
Reach: Meme marketing is mainly carried out on social networks and digital platforms, where memes have high visibility and shareability.
Interaction: Create a community with your target audience and build customer loyalty through humor.
Positioning: It can work as a rebranding for traditional brands, as it conveys a message of adaptation to modern times and the type of humor of younger people.
Why is Meme Marketing Important?
For any company, it is vital to adapt to the communication trends of its target audience. A brand that continues to communicate in the same way it did in 2006 could face serious problems when connecting with future customer prospects. Meme marketing is so important today because it is a new communication method. In addition, it leads to the following:
Increased engagement
You already know that memes have a great ability to capture the attention of online audiences. Due to their humorous and viral nature, memes hold people’s attention quickly and effectively. By using memes in their marketing strategies, brands can generate greater interest and engagement from their target audience.
Greater emotional connection
Meme marketing is able to allow brands to establish an emotional connection with their audience. Memes often reflect everyday situations that people can relate to. Going to a gym and not knowing what to do, lying about dieting, being a compulsive shopper -these are very common situations reflected in memes.
This allows brands to relate more authentically and closely with their audience. By sharing relevant and funny memes, brands can generate a sense of identification and resonance with their audience.
Instant viral content
Meme marketing can also be part of a strategy to generate shareable and viral content. Memes spread widely on social networks, increasing brands’ reach and visibility organically. This, in turn, contributes to increased brand awareness and online exposure.
Accessibility
How much does it cost to create a meme? Maybe about 15 minutes if you don’t know where to start. Meme marketing is a way to generate content that gets interaction without spending too much time or resources that may well be allocated to larger projects or tasks.
How to Create a Meme Marketing Strategy?
Creating a meme marketing strategy requires careful planning and consideration. Here are some key steps to help you develop an effective strategy.
- Know your audience
Before you begin, it’s important to understand who you’re targeting. Research your target audience to understand their demographics, interests, and online behaviors. For this particular case, knowing the types of memes that might resonate with your target audience is also imperative. This will help you tailor your memes more effectively.
- Research popular memes and trends
Stay up-to-date on memes and trends online. For effective meme marketing, explore social media, viral content platforms, and online communities to identify your niche’s most popular and relevant memes. This will allow you to understand which memes could be used in your strategy and how to adapt them creatively.
- Be authentic
Make sure the memes you choose are relevant to your brand and message. Avoid forcing memes that do not fit with your identity or values, this, although it may not seem like it, is very noticeable to the public and causes the opposite effect of what meme marketing seeks: it generates rejection. Be authentic and avoid looking like you are trying to monetize trends without a clear connection to your brand.
- Integrate memes into your content strategy
Incorporate memes into your content strategy on social media, blog, or other relevant digital channels. Use memes to convey key messages, promote products or services, and generate engagement and interaction with your audience.
- Measure and evaluate results
Track and analyze the performance of your memes. Look at engagement, reach, and share metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of your memes. Learn from the results and make adjustments as needed to improve your meme marketing strategy in the future.
Are there any Contraindications to Meme Marketing?
While memes provide a good time, they are so subjective in subject matter that sometimes you must be careful about what you expose. Since memes can be ephemeral and are subject to rapid changes in online culture and trends, brands must be up-to-date and context-sensitive to avoid misunderstanding or appearing inauthentic.
In addition, memes should be used ethically and respectfully, avoiding plagiarizing or manipulating the work of other creators. This will not only ruin your professional ethics but could also tarnish your brand’s name. If you explore trends and know how to keep things contextualized, meme marketing is waiting for you! Will you give it a try?
