Should your brand join in on the joke?

Welcome back to Digital Gravity 🪐

Every Friday, we share strategies to help you grow your business with content marketing and reach ‘critical mass’ in the great online game.

This week, Katie shares some best practices for meme marketing.

Enjoy 👇

🃏 It’s more than just a joke! 🃏

By Katie Conover

The internet’s inside jokes come and go faster and faster.

One day, everyone’s talking about a CEO’s reaction to a kiss cam.

The next day, eyes will roll if you mention it online.

“That was soooo yesterday.”

But it can be hard to be relevant with this stuff. It takes a while for a whole marketing team to agree on what’s funny and how to respond.

So, what actually works when brands tell jokes?

Say your joke AS SOON as possible!

Sometimes, brands kill it. 

They use the virality of a situation to draw attention to themselves. 

Now, everyone’s laughing at the joke and with THE BRAND, too!

But more often than not, brands are seconds too late. And then the world is laughing at them. Suddenly, the brand is ‘cringe,’ and the world has moved on to the next big thing.

AND you do NOT want your brand to be CRINGE! Not all press is good press.

If I had a nickel for every time I saw a brand/company try to hop on a funny trend, and all the replies were completely negative, I’d have a whole bunch of nickels. I’d have like five bucks or something.

Also, I’m not just talking Gen Z and millennial viewers (although they’re pretty important); every generation is online nowadays.

No matter the age, people really care if companies are ‘with it’.

To be considered ‘in the loop’ and ‘funny’ as a brand, you need your timing to be PERFECT.

This blog I found calls it ‘meme marketing’, and the market is projected to hit $6.1 billion by the end of this year. Pretty big deal.

So, how do you meme?

The two most important skills to know for successful meme marketing are sharp timing and cultural fluency.

If perfected, this can lead to positive community engagement and can humanize your brand.

Internet/social media humor is no joke.

It shows the brand knows their audience to a T, forms emotional and psychological connections, and now a whole new audience sees you as more than just a product or service.

For example, Netflix is a well-known, successful, silly meme marketer.

They use viral meme formats, they’re quick to comment on popular posts, and their brand voice stays consistent. 

Netflix US has 37.6 million Instagram followers… Hulu has 2 million. 

Arguably, Hulu and Netflix are pretty tied when it comes to streaming services, if we look at just the USA subscribers.

So, why does Netflix have way more followers?

Netflix is more relevant and takes itself less seriously. They understand topical trends, and it pays off. Sure, Hulu tries, but the jokes don’t hit as hard.

No one wants to follow a bland account whose posts or meme templates are way overdone.

My advice to you: be funny, honey!

Next time you’re thinking of posting something silly on your brand's account or adding a meme to your newsletter, really think about the timing.

Your audience wants to know you're up-to-date on what’s relevant and funny.

When you make your audience laugh, you make them interested.

Because 1 giggle = 1 subscriber.

—Katie