People love to laugh. They also like to share things that make them laugh. Think about the last time you saw something funny.
Did you immediately tag someone on Facebook who you knew would love it? People like to see things that make them feel good.
Any time you can generate a chuckle out of your audience, your share rate will go up. Here are some of the reasons memes are so popular in influencer marketing.
Memes Can Go Viral
It doesn't matter how good your content is; it's difficult for people to get a link-shared post to go viral.
Even if your content is full of helpful and valuable information, people don’t often share it if it's purely educational or sounds too promotional. Depending on what niche you're in, it can be hard to get your content out there.
With memes, however, the potential to go viral is there. People share, like, and build upon memes in endless combinations.
We've all seen this across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As a matter of fact, there are Instagram meme accounts specifically for this purpose.
Memes are a way to create content that is instantly sharable amongst your target audience.
High Engagement Rates
Right now, Millennials are the largest consumer group in the nation. This generation is a hard group of people to advertise to because, essentially, they're having none of it.
They are suspicious of anything that feels branded, and they can smell promotion from miles away.
This is one of the reasons why branded content on social media often has low engagement rates. Traditional marketing campaigns for brand awareness are just not as effective for today's audience as they were for previous generations.
Put up a meme, however, and the whole game changes. Memes are based on pop culture trends and have a high engagement rate because they make people laugh, or make them feel as though they are in on the joke.
Memes offer entertainment value and are refreshing in a world that's always trying to sell something.
Because they aren't overly promotional, meme marketing is an effective way to get high engagement rates for your content.
Grow Your Target Audience
Part of successful meme marketing involves targeting your specific audience. This is highly effective when it comes to growing your audience and brand awareness, especially if your memes become viral.
Social media will recommend posts that have higher engagement rates to other users on the platform with similar interests. This can result in growing your reach to your target audience reasonably quickly.
This can be tricky for influencers if they don't truly understand their audience. It's just as easy for a meme to bomb and make you the laughingstock of the youth as it is for a meme to viral-spin out into infinity.
You must have a good understanding of your audience, their pain points, and their sense of humor.
As one of the fastest-growing marketing trends, meme marketing must be done carefully for it not to backfire.
It's Hard to Skip Memes
Another reason meme marketing is so effective for influencers is that almost all memes are read.
When you are scrolling through your social media, memes pop out and catch your eye. It takes about three seconds to read a meme and gives an instant feeling of gratification.
This is ideally suited for today's customers who want to consume content quickly and instantly. While people may scroll right past a sponsored post, they will definitely stop to read a meme.
Memes are meant to be hilarious and connect with people in a way that makes them feel understood.
They have a notoriety for being genuine reflections of the feelings towards today's events and struggles. Because of this, people will almost always stop scrolling to see what a meme says.
Memes are more relevant today than ever. The reason meme marketing is so effective for influencers is that it touches people on an emotional level.
It's hard to get that same result from traditional marketing methods. People want to share things that make them feel happy, understood, and important.
Not only do memes have the potential to go viral, but they're also a great way to expand your target audience.