You’ve probably come across memes some time in your journey across the Internet.
Social media memes are a popular and humorous way for many sites to connect with their visitors.
This is because memes are popular with netizens across the board.
There are many reasons why a social media site would post a meme.
Most of the time, it’s a lighthearted way for them to provide some entertainment and laughs.
Memes are a humorous way to make a commentary on current issues too.
Posting memes are a common part of how online social media accounts operate. It’s part of their content and digital marketing strategy to bring in more visitors by being culturally relevant.
What Exactly are Memes and Where did They Come From?
One of the first places that mentions the word meme was in the book ‘The Selfish Gene’ by biologist Richard Dawkins. However, the word meme in this book was used to describe behaviors or trends that were copied and remixed from person to person.
The existence of Internet memes is as old as the Internet itself.
The word meme itself comes from an older English word, ‘mimeme’ which means to copy.
This came about because memes were copied, personalized and then spread all over the Internet.
No one knows for sure where memes came from, but it’s more likely that it was a natural cultural practice that evolved from Internet use and netizens came up with a term for it later on.
It’s not unusual for the public to copy and share jokes, images or quotes that they liked in the past. The same practice can be applied to a social media meme.
These days, memes are used to subtly convey ideas, opinions and culture in a funny and lighthearted manner.
Memes can also be an effective way for social media marketing.
Memes can come from a variety of places, like the meme of Kanye West liking and disliking something.
Why are Memes Suitable for Social Media Marketing?
If you are a marketer with a business page, you can use memes as a way to create a connection with your visitors and followers.
Business memes may not sound like something that’s useful for your brand, but it has plenty of benefits for your sites in the long run. Here are some ways it can help to viralize your content media marketing.
# Benefit 1
It’s Cost Effective to Produce
Brand memes are usually not fully original content. Instead, you find and personalize meme templates that others have created. These templates are usually free of any copyright and you can obtain them easily via Google search.
This saves plenty of time and effort, as well as other resources. All you have to do is come up with your own personalized meme ideas to make the meme convey the message you want.
As memes are not copyrighted, you’ll be able to use them and edit them pretty much freely. You are also free to produce your own unique content marketing meme.
# Benefit 2
It’s Easy to Relate to
Memes often take on the trendiest current issues and present them in a funny and interesting way. Netizens would have seen this meme somewhere else before, and understand the message being conveyed.
This makes your brand more human and relatable, rather than stiff and distant. Making your brand more relatable brings you closer to your visitor, and increases their engagement of your brand too since they will perceive your brand as being on the same level as them, rather than talking down to them.
# Benefit 3
It Helps Increase Engagement
Memes have a way of making your followers and visitors feel relaxed enough to be able to engage with you. These engagements can take the form of likes, follows, subscriptions, reactions, shares and comments.
No matter what type of engagement your content receives, it is a good sign. It means that people are generally interested in your posts.
If you observe memes on social media, you’ll find that they attract some of the highest interactions from visitors. Therefore, memes are an easy way to attract more traffic and increase conversion.
#Benefit 4
You Can Leverage on Current Trends
Memes are not too difficult to create in terms of content. You would already have a template in the form of previous meme usage.
Even with simple software like Microsoft Paint, you can create your own personalized meme from this template.
It goes without saying that there are more advanced softwares out there that provide superior design services that are more advanced and convenient.
To name a few, Canva, Adobe Spark and QuickMeme are generally among the most popular and best tools for meme content marketing.
With so many different ways and platforms to generate and create actual memes as your social media content, you can take advantage of the latest issues to attract traffic to your site. For example, many sites make commentaries about the Covid-19 pandemic at its height.
By using current issues as a talking point, you’ll be able to gain more shares from visitors, which in turn will cause more people to see your content.
The more popular and relevant the issue you touch on is, the more people will be interested in it.
To make your marketing memes reach a wider audience, you can check out our guide to social media marketing and our rundown of the best social media marketing tools.
#Benefit 5
It Allows You to Entertain Your Audience
It’s no secret that on social media, entertaining content performs better than directly informative ones. One such type of entertaining content would be memes.
Good memes would make people laugh, but also make them think and appreciate your take on things. Good memes always attract visitors back so that you can increase the rate of returning followers.
Memes are also a good way to add some variety to your social media content, so that it doesn’t feel monotonous and your audience does not have to feel bored of the same content concepts over and over.
How to Post the Best Memes for Your Business: 5 Tips on How To Use Memes For Your Content Marketing
Here are some of the best practices that you can carry out when creating quality content memes for your social media pages.
There are many ways to design commercial memes, and not all of them have to hard sell your products and services. Sometimes, it’s about attracting the right amount of traffic for your page.
1. Optimize Targeting for Your Meme
Knowing your audience is the most important aspect of meme creation. Some types of businesses, especially those that target younger consumers, have a better chance of attracting target audiences via memes.
As such, as a meme creator, you should also know what issues resonate with your target audience and the current trends are.
Linking your meme with an issue that’s currently ‘hot’ among viewers is the best way to optimize your meme for increased traffic.
2. Determine Your Brand Voice
As a business, it helps if you’re consistent with your brand voice. This means the tone you adopt and the type of content you put up has to be consistent.
The use of memes isn’t necessarily suitable for every type of business. If you have a brand voice that is lighthearted, casual or caters to a younger audience, then memes are for you.
Examples of businesses that usually feature memes as part of their content include entertainment companies, TV channels, trendy food outlets and travel companies.
For these types of businesses, a positive and bright brand voice works to their advantage.
Another type of business that will benefit include startups and micro-enterprises. Small businesses using memes are a great way to be noticed by netizens.
3. Keep Up with Current Issues and Staying Relevant
It’s easy to keep up with what’s happening around you, especially with the Internet. If you’re on Facebook, you can follow several legitimate local news outlets and this will give you a clearer picture.
It helps to also see what your friends and others are sharing on social media so as to know what is going viral among Malaysians at any given time.
Whenever you see others sharing memes, knowing current issues will allow you to understand the context behind those memes.
It will also allow you to understand the situation enough to be able to create your own memes.
4. Don’t Overdo It
The usage of memes should not be forced. For example, creating too many memes advertising your products and services may backfire.
Instead of attracting visitors to your account, these advertisement memes may be annoyed and feel pressured that you’re constantly pushing your brand.
Memes should come naturally and it should focus on delivering fun messages.
Seeing how a meme is being used elsewhere is the best way you can learn. They should be subtle and shouldn’t involve over-thinking, just like you’re coming up with a funny joke.
5. Risk Assessment is Necessary
As a business, it’s advisable for you not to create offensive or controversial content in any way, as this will hurt your company in the long run.
Therefore, before you post any memes, you have to ask yourself whether this content is able to hurt anyone’s feelings.
It is also a good idea to understand the community standards set by all the social platforms today, which prohibit content with violence, racism, sexism, hate speech and the like.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Meme Posting in Your Content Writing
Here’s a useful meme guide about what you should and should not do when crafting a meme for your page. Remember that memes should be creative, but they should also respect sensitivities.
DO’S | DONT’S |
Be funny and relevant to your audience | Make controversial memes that go against community standards |
Keep up with the latest pop culture | Use memes you don’t fully understand |
Make it public and easy to share | Hard sell your products or services with taglines and sales pitches |
Keep track of your meme’s performance | Post memes that are outdated |
Use hashtags to help it trend | Use the same meme over and over again |
If you’re looking for a good example of meme usage on a social media site in Malaysia, look no further than GSC Cinemas.
GSC’s FB page is well known to resonate with Malaysians across demographics, and they do it tastefully.
It’s important to note that GSC has never tried to sell any of their cinema tickets or related products through their memes.
Instead, these memes are merely for fun and engagement, and that is the main reason they usually work so well and are often widely shared among the Malaysian, or even overseas community!
Memes are Effective Tools If Used the Right Way
Understanding meme culture is part of understanding the Internet, and understanding Internet culture is necessary for you to accomplish social media marketing.
To help you wrap your head around Internet culture, you can consider hiring a professional social media marketing agency like One Search Pro.
Come talk to us anytime for a solid plan on how you can grow your business online with memes and other impactful content!
