Viral Meme Marketing

(Wix GIF Bank - 'Meme')

As a social media (SM) marketer enthusiast, wondering about online memes in the marketing world is intriguing. However, even those who specialize in SM marketing and meme culture, can still find it quite head-scratching to explain it's success for SM marketing.

Meme Virality

A victorious meme must be relatively viral. Meme virality comes from content creation and spreading of the meme. For this to happen, the content should be ‘meme worthy’. ‘Meme-worthiness’ derives from the joy and/or ease of joining it's consumer-generated media from how topical or intense of an emotional reaction it evokes.

For instance, Squid Game’s Red Light Green Light scene (Netflix) became a viral meme which, in turn, boosted the show’s audience. It is easily replicated, edited and allows for a lot of communal creativity. It's multiple dimensions (depth) aids its higher reach and entertainment. Unexpectedness, familiarity, comedy and relevancy; these executional variables make the meme's popularity and thus marketing.

(Wix GIF Bank - 'Red Light Green Light Subtitle Meme')

Successfully Incorporating Memes in SM Marketing

This is highly dependent on the brand values and aesthetics (brand strategy) of what is being marketed. It makes sense to use such a light-hearted, comedic, often-cringeworthy medium such as memes for a branding that matches its traits, if to be used at all. Many would agree that memes work best for marketing SM accounts that are specifically for or expected to include memes. The account followers of said accounts would then create a niche community amongst themselves, actively contributing to the memes to (a point of at least local) virality/success. Without expecting memes in certain online marketing, it too easy to fail as memes often contain inappropriate, amateur and short-lived content.

(Screenshot by Anna Gelagin - Memes IG Home Page)

Alternatively, your SM marketing campaign becomes a meme without it meaning to be. This is extremely common and is the type of marketing that hits the most virality. This is due to real-life ‘memeable’ content being more humourous and impressive knowing that it was not scripted in hopes of fabricating a meme. Fingers crossed your meme marketing becomes the next viral Old Spice’s Body Wash commercial!

Would you use memes in your SM marketing? Let me know below!