The so-called "creative economy" encompasses a wildly varied range of goods, such as dance videos on TikTok, crocheted doilies on Etsy, and bizarre jokes on iFunny. It is developing into a powerful force. The creator economy received a record $1.3 billion in funding in 2021 alone, demonstrating the confidence the financial community has in it. By the year 2022, it is obvious that memes are no longer merely for amusement.
The sector's pioneers, including industry behemoths like Meta and more niche entertainment tech businesses like FunCorp, whose team I had the honor to join in 2021, were lucky to be at the vanguard of many changes in the business, including the meteoric rise of memes in popular culture.
Innovative players from a variety of sectors are using this power to their advantage by creating communities and igniting passionate feelings about their brands. Here are some innovative new ways that memes can support you in achieving your strategic business goals in relation to both your customers and your teams:
Reach out to younger people. Memes don't have a specific target audience in mind, but if you want to appeal to a bigger segment of the younger population, they may be the most efficient way of brief communication.
According to data from GlobalWebIndex, 54% of Gen-Z users, 41% of Millennials, and 21% of Gen-X users hunt for new memes every day, while 75% of users between the ages of 13 and 36 frequently post memes.
Given these figures, it would seem obvious to use memes to assist your business' communications reach younger clients and potential collaborators.
Launch a cheap marketing effort. Your meme marketing campaign has the potential to become viral because, when done properly, a meme that only requires a small budget to generate can use the power of social media to go viral. Businesses across industries, from grocery delivery services to luxury retailers, are already taking advantage of this.
Gucci's meme-based ad campaign "#TFWGucci" ("That Feeling When Gucci"), which generated over 21,000 comments and 2 million likes, ranks as one of the company's most engaging campaigns.
Meme production is made simple, even for beginners, by built-in editing tools in apps like Yepp, which is helping to popularize the art of meme generation.
Boost activity on your social media page. If you like memes, you're probably aware of how many smart spins on breaking news there are online. To increase online engagement with your audience, keep tabs on the most popular memes and post the ones that are timely and consistent with your brand. While millennials often avoid commercial and sponsored material, a recent study showed the advantages of this tactic and found that 84% of them are affected by user-generated content, including memes on company pages.
Make your brand more noticeable. Memes can stick in your memory long after you click on them because of their brief structure, snappy messaging, and eye-catching images.
This may be taken advantage of by including memes into your branding, which will ensure greater brand recall than other forms of communication. It's a competitive market, and memes aid in piercing the wall of consumer apathy and grabbing their attention.
Barkbox, a firm that sells subscription boxes of dog toys, is one business that has this down pat. Barkbox virtually solely shares memes on its Instagram page, where it has amassed an astonishing 1.8 million followers. It currently has one million more followers than PetSmart, the biggest pet retailer in the US.
Promote brand loyalty. Memes tend to bring people together by reassuring them that they are not alone in their thoughts and feelings, in contrast to traditional marketing, which can alienate some consumers by being highly aspirational (think beach body advertisements, reels for the newest diet products).
Memes then develop into a potent instrument for fostering a sense of community among customers, which in turn fosters brand loyalty.
Align your onboarding with the culture of your organization. It can be intimidating to start a new job, and it can be challenging to understand the culture of your new workplace.
Using memes to welcome new employees may be an excellent approach to emphasize this if you take pride in building a distinctive work environment that differs from the stuffy, hierarchical offices of the past. When used properly, memes can aid in new team members' understanding of and integration into the workplace.
Develop your teamwork skills. Strong emotions can be evoked by memes, which is what content that makes people laugh out loud usually does. While corporate culture gurus are now turning to memes in search of additional ways to inspire and unify staff, memes are still most frequently employed for external marketing in company.
A unique and enjoyable technique to promote team building is by setting up work channels for sharing your favorite memes or by hosting corporate competitions for the greatest meme produced by employees on a specific relevant issue. And when used properly, they can undoubtedly add some flavor to a display.
Add some flavor to internal conversations. Utilizing a variety of topical memes in internal communications can help you emphasize your main points and even add some humor to even the most serious subjects. During an internal new product presentation or a weekly team meeting, it is wonderful to hear the audience break out in genuine laughing.
Memes are a quick and easy method to accomplish this, adding a little humor to the routine.
Beyond internal communications, corporate and investor presentations might also profit from the use of memes.
Help add variety to boring activities. Not every profession can be entertaining all the time because repetitive duties are frequently required and cannot be avoided in the workplace. Feeling engaged is also a crucial element of employee retention and satisfaction.
Consider making small changes that have a big impact, such as adding a "meme of the day" to your team's workflow or even asking the team to suggest their own appropriate memes for some lightheartedness and to promote social interaction in order to help break up the monotony of some tedious tasks that cannot be eliminated from the daily work schedule.