July 23rd, 2024
During the President Biden Inauguration Day in 2021, social media was fixated on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Senator Sanders made waves on social media after a photograph of him from the occasion advanced right into a meme. Since that day Mr. Sanders has been superimposed onto all kinds of scenes, from “The Contemporary Prince of Bel-Air’s” theme track to “Egyptian Pyramid”.
Memes are viral by nature.
Their success depends on people creating new iterations of recognizable photos and sharing them online, most often through social networks and news media.
The attention these memes receive and the engagement they foster creates significant connections between giant groups of social media users. That is one of the most sought after marketing technique by seasoned marketers. This is an incredibly effective marketing, and all for next to nothing in cost.
If an online business could effectively harness such memes, it would be a super easy way, and hugely cost-effective, to attain innumerable extra social media views and therefore potential visitors to your website or social media account – where you can promote your products/services.
If you feel that a meme advertising technique sounds somewhat intimidating or can’t see how you can use this for your business, you’re not alone.
This kind of content material (memes) go viral usually because of the joy they bring to the younger generations, but not necessarily only the younger people.
Younger people are more technically savvy so they usually create a trend that can authentically incorporate memes into their social media posts. What you have to figure out is how to do it as an advertising technique for your business.
What Makes Memes Go Viral Through Social Media?
Before we look at meme advertising techniques, let’s look at memes and how and why this kind of content material captures people’s imagination, and hence spreads through the social networks.
A meme is a viral content material (an image often), similar to any other type of meme (e.g. a video meme) and they go viral and spread quickly online via social media networks and website hyperlinks. The fastest growing method is through sharing, often in social media.
Therefore, “sharing” is the fastest way to make your meme (for your business or otherwise) to spread.
So if “sharing” is the most effective way, then you need to make sure that your meme is the sort of content that people would like to share with their friends and followers in social media. You have to make your memes “appealing and fun”, that way people would want to share them with others.
Once you have a content meme that people like, and they are sharing it, then all you have to do is advertise (or promote) that content through paid ads or through promotions so more people see it and hence more people share it. The more enticing and refreshing the meme and the content, the more your advertising will be effective since you have created content that compels your audience to share it with their friends and followers.
Four of the most effective methods to create content that captures your audiences’ attention and will get you in front of new viewers, are as follows.
1. Make Your Viral Content (or memes) “Relatable”
People almost always share content or meme when they really feel it’s a genuine reflection of themselves. Something that they relate to and they feel their friends would understand. Often it is a way to communicate their value system, or what they find to be a socially acceptable behavior, or something to do with their pet peeves. The important thing you should remember is that your content should be launched on the basis that the viewers really understand and support that particular trend of thought. Otherwise, it will be a total failure.
How do you create and produce content that is relatable, that people connect to, and makes them want to share it with others? The simple answer is: Get to know your audience. Really, get to know them and try to understand them.
For entrepreneurs and business owners, there are some very basic questions that will get you to think about what your audience is really like.
Here’s a few questions you should ask and think about:
– Who are my potential clients that I really wish to join with?
– What content material would they really feel captivated by?
– What are their aspirations, desires, dreams, and values?
– Why would they care about my marketing campaign?
– How do they wish to express themselves?
– What kind of content would they wish to share with their social community?”
Focus on what your viewers care about and what concepts, beliefs and values resonate with them. Then amplify them on social media through your content, memes, posts, and through your ad post campaigns.
If you go back to the Senator Sanders meme as an example: first, it was downright hilarious, and second, the meme advanced into viral social media due to its reliability. While most people think politicians follow an acceptable norm in their dress code, Sanders sported a Burton rain jacket and handmade mittens. People related to that.
The often promoted expensive designer labels for the wealthy class allowed the irritable Vermont senator to resonate with a large viewers who consider themselves the middle class which motivated individuals to share the meme, time and again, on social media.
2. Create Viral Content that triggers An Emotional Response
What kind of content triggers an emotional response?
Usually content that is regarded as blissful, very happy and joyful, sad or unhappy, humorous or inspiring, … these are some of the main ones that trigger an emotional response. Often things like unhappy events in the news, or a cute animal doing a strange and funny thing … these are among the most popular.
What is useful for your business marketing is when your viral content makes individuals really feel one thing and one thing only. The singularity of such emotion often triggers a reaction for which the response is to share it. If you can achieve this, they are going to feel compelled to share it.
When crafting a viral advertising content, try to use events or images that trigger human feelings. Try to evoke emotion, be entertaining or inspirational, present a component of shock, or information that is very, very useful during a crises or an emergency.
You can present the information or event as creatively or artistically as you want, just make sure your content results in emotional reaction that is based on your audiences’ values. Otherwise, there is no connection and hence there won’t be any reaction to share your content.
In you need some ideas, go to YouTube and take a look at the most watched video advert in the past. Such videos may give you ideas on how to blend emotional reaction to your brand.
Explore ideas like self-love, inspirational moments, motivational advice, or even self-criticism in a brand new and fascinating manner. If these qualities are used in the right way for a viral social media content marketing, they can be very effective.
3. Make Your Viral Content Easily Visible
Viral content marketing is nearly at all times rooted in visuals which trigger interaction, a natural emotional desire to connect with others in order to agree or disagree or simply to engage and offer comments. It’s a form of self-expression.
Think of it as the way a person will engage simply because they cannot ignore the visual effect, and something deeply rooted in their past experiences that make them want to engage and offer a comment or agree/disagree or share with friends to re-enforce a previous discussion.
They have to engage or share it, because THEY JUST HAVE TO.
Visuals in business memes is no different and is intended to trigger interaction from consumers and make the core messages of your marketing campaign simpler to understand and relate to.
The narrative of a marketing campaign ought to tell a story in its finest visible parts that resonate along with your viewers. And make the visible parts offer a holistic message that is fascinating, informative, and comprise some ingredient of intrigue, desire, humor or hope.
4. Viral content must be simple to understand
If you are posting your viral contents on social media, you must consider that you have only a few seconds to trigger a reaction from your online viewers (potential customers). So, what does that imply in your viral content presentation?
Content that’s simple for the viewers to digest will dramatically increase the possibility that it will be understood and hence trigger a reaction (for instance sharing it). Therefore, it’s highly likely that it will go viral.
Your message has to be loud and clear, no ambiguity, and definitely not confusing. No double meanings, and no long-form description as both will leave viewers confused and uninspired.
The usual advice from marketing experts on keeping viral content and its message simple is : “make your message a candy and make it quick”.
Here’s a list of best practices for viral content marketing and use of memes
1. For a business marketing meme, use a traditional instance of viral content, like a video or a picture with one or two traces of textual content.
2. Make your content humorous something whereby viewers will share with pals and their own followers and it seems everyone is in on the joke.
3. Use memes in your content promotion to create deeper connections with your viewers.
4. Use your content to talk in your viewers’ language and you can be rewarded with a bigger, extra engaged following.
5. Use humor. You can rarely go wrong. “Laughter is a human emotion that’s shareable.”
6. Take time to study the language of the net communities. Yes there is a way they talk. Listen to what they say and how they say it.
7. Make content appear simple to grasp, and yet slightly complicated and witty so that it appears clever and something to notice and share.
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