An Ultimate Guide to Meme Marketing

Are you looking for fun ways to increase your engagement level on social media networks? If yes, meme marketing is a great way to get started.

Yes, you heard me right. In this write-up, you’ll discover the best ways your business can employ memes to engage and connect with people.

On the internet, you see memes everywhere. Memes can say everything with a simple picture and a few short words. 

It would not be wrong if you say memes are one of the funniest and smartest ways to communicate with your target audience.

The power of these funny pictures can be gauged from the fact that memes usually get thousands of retweets and Instagram likes. So, why not employ them to make your brand a great success story?

Here’s your ultimate guide to meme marketing.

In the forthcoming paragraphs, I have also provided information about a prominent Meme marketing course and practical Meme marketing case studies to give you a fair workaround for utilizing Meme marketing strategies in your business.

A Layman’s Definition of Meme

The word “meme” was first employed before the existence of Facebook or Twitter.

In 1976, Richard Dawkins authored “The Selfish Gene,” where he used the word to describe how the cultural trend spreads.

He did not intend to refer to it as a humorous digital image; however, the sentiment resonates the same now.

At present, a meme usually features text overlaid over a prevailing image.

It can be a famous character or something from social media.

The message is intended in a humorous or relatable way about the image in question.

It’s a way to provide some social commentary on a specific subject, albeit in an easy-to-digest, visual manner.

Now that we are aware of the definition of the term “meme,” it is time to look at some meme marketing statistics that will help you understand its importance in the business world. 

1. Meme Marketing Statistics Highlighting its Importance in the Business World

According to a report of YPulse’s social media behaviors survey,

• 55% of 13-35-year-olds send memes on a weekly basis—and 30% send them daily.

• 74% send memes to make people smile or laugh, and 53% send them as a reaction to something.

• 38% of people follow meme accounts on different social media networks. 

2. The Growing Importance of Memes in the Marketing World

Here are a few reasons to use memes for marketing your business.

i) This idea is already successful and viral

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and all the other places have memes there. As we are heading into the last quarter of the year 2020, it has been observed that memes have become more than merely a trend. Albeit, they have become the primary source of infotainment for millennials and Generation Z.

ii) Easier to showcase complex concepts

It is always difficult to present complex concepts, but the beauty of meme marketing is it makes it easier to showcase these complex concepts and go native.

You might say, “Phew! I was not aware of this! But, yes, it’s true! The beauty of memes is that they provide a unique message wrapped up in humor, enabling your brand to showcase complex concepts and go native.

iii) It’s more of a cultural thing than a trend

Culture is a lens through which we analyze everything around us. At the same time, a trend cannot undermine memes. Memes are much more than that.

They have kept changing with time. Memes capture trends in communication way better than brands every time. Whether it’s the World cup, Elections, IPL to #JCBkikhudayi, memes have been able to immediately pick and create trends. 

iv) They are cost-effective

Meme marketing campaigns are reasonably priced. Their cost is way less compared to attracting influencers and delivering better traction. This is especially true when it comes to connecting with your target audience in their tone. 

v) Likely to attract traffic, likes, and links

The days of influencer marketing and display advertising are taking a back turn in the digital era.

Major customers are getting deflected due to the cosmetic look of influencer posts and the intruding nature of display ads. 

Whereas, in the case of meme marketing, when it comes to memes are the most trusted, shared, and enjoyed forms of content. They are more likely to attract traffic, likes, and links for your brand.

Memes can power up your communication. This will ultimately multiply the visibility and interaction, resulting in better ROI for your business.

vi) Highly creative form of communication

When it comes to businesses, creativity is all about thinking out of the box, resulting in innovativeness while performing a specific task. Honestly, Memes are all about it.

Memes are great examples to provide when you wish to display something creative.

vii) Easy to target a specific community or audience

When it comes to memes, you can count on the fact that there are no barriers. Memes are followed and created in various languages and for every community. 

The good thing about memes is that even their dubbed copies prove highly insightful to the target audience.

For example, take a look at this meme below.

viii) Most loved form of communication

Phew! You might question their maturity or even reject them for recklessness. But one thing is for sure people love Memes.

Let’s now look at the images of a few Memes that have brought brands under the required spotlight.

3. Meme Marketing by Brands

Here’s a look at some top Meme marketing by brands.

Netflix

With the help of such funny and relatable memes during the release of Birdbox, Netflix reported that it was their best seven-day film ever. Even though the movie had a serious premise, they could still create the right buzz by making super funny memes.

Ruffles Flamin’ Hot

This is one of the brilliant memes created by Ruffles. The good thing is, it’s hard to get over this one, right? Ruffles cleverly leveraged the opportunity and came up with this fantastic meme that hardly requires any explanation. 

Big Bazaar

This was one of the funny memes created by Big Bazaar to promote their ongoing sale. It was an instant hit over the internet. Their objective was to develop sneaky content and reach a broader scale of the target audience. And they were quite successful.

Alt Balaji

Who could forget the phrase JCB meme when the only thing on the internet was JCB with funny captions? Alt Balaji took advantage of this trend to promote this new series. Look at the caption above!

Brand Factory

This was one of the several funniest memes that Brand Factory created to engage a broader target audience and make great brand recalls. 

Now that you have looked at how reputed brands have leveraged meme marketing strategies to get the required spotlight to let’s divert our attention to the best ways to leverage meme marketing strategies in your daily marketing plan on social media.

4. 3 Strategies to add Memes in  Social Media Marketing

Let’s look at some of the best strategies to adopt while incorporating memes in your marketing, especially in social media content.

Make sure you transfer the same message through the meme you have for your brand. 

While most marketers are aware of memes that might appeal to their target audience, it can be challenging to incorporate them while maintaining brand consistency.

However, as memes have become more popular, even reputed lifestyle brands have begun to experiment with them to stay relevant and grow their followers using meme marketing.

Memes have the scope of expanding your reach drastically, especially if you are targeting Millennials or younger ones.

The key is to be genuine and not overly conventional. Try to refine your tone by clearly defining your target persona:

• What content does your customer consume?
• What TV shows, celebrities, or music do they like?
• What is the best way to delight and entertain them? 
• What are the problems they are facing that are common to your community?

Once you get the right answers to these questions, it will help you understand your target persona’s interests. It would also help you to make relatable jokes.

Sometimes, meme marketing attempts fail due to generic ads being posted instead of cultural commentary. Always keep this in mind: Successful memes do not include an action item, i.e., there’s no “buy” or “subscribe” in your body.

However, when your social media content delights and entertains those who interact with it, it is more likely to be shared. 

Expand your existing meme library

It is always possible to repurpose existing memes by scrutinizing popular meme template collections like those available on imgflip or Giphy.

You can even create original memes for your brand. However, it is challenging because you have to source material for the meme, determine a format, and overlay some relatable commentary.

You need to spend a lot of your valuable time, energy, and creativity. But, it has more chances of your content being shared.

In case you have a product that customers can easily take photos with, ask permission from your community to employ their pictures and videos. You can even ask your team to film/shoot the content themselves.

Here are some of the things to keep in mind while creating custom memes for your brand:

Meme Types

There are different ways to create memes online. It can be in the form of photos, screenshots, videos, or even GIFs. I suggest you experiment with all of them and see what users react most strongly too!

Fonts

Twitter utilizes Montserrat or Helvetica Neue as fonts. However, certain creators even opt for Aerial, Comic Sans, and others in different contexts. Impact font was quite popular in the past, but in recent times, it is not being used as it makes memes look old-fashioned.

Style

I recommend you employ emojis, rounded corners, and embedded text. Meme consumers are habituated to checking out these visual elements and recognizing them instantly.

Tooth & Honey is one such company that utilizes original meme marketing. Look at this meme marketing example given below.

Animals are quite a popular subject when it comes to “wholesale” internet culture. Hence, dog-related brands can engage with that meme community without any hassle.

Additionally, people who own dogs tend to follow dog-related social media, so Tooth & Honey’s funny, share-worthy content attracts pet owners organically.

Incorporate memes in your social media content

If you are new to meme marketing, here are different ways to include memes in your social media content:

Participate in Meme-Style challenges

Castaway Clothing completed a decade and posted the $10YearChallenge on Facebook by comparing its old logo with a new one. Let’s look at their Meme marketing example.

Final Words

Memes continue to grow from strength to strength in terms of popularity. 

You can see meme-related content across different platforms like Tumblr, LinkedIn, Twitter, and IGTV. 

Multiple people are now creating and consuming memes online.

Meme marketing is all about showcasing your creativity. Trust your instincts on humor. Use your judgment, create more consuming memes, and return to making them.

You can join prominent Meme marketing courses by Udemy or even study prominent Meme marketing case studies by featured customers to get a grip on the subject. 

Go forward and start doing meme marketing today!