4 Reasons to Use Memes in your Marketing

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Memes have become a unit of cultural currency in the digital age and can be found across all social media platforms. They are humorous pieces of content, often featuring an image and text, intended for quick consumption. But can you use memes for marketing? This article looks at what memes are, how you can use memes for marketing, and what to watch out for if you do try out this strategy.

What are memes?
The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phone list term “meme” in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. The word is a combination of the Greek “mimeme” (something imitated) and “gene”, pronounced to rhyme with “cream”.

In Dawkins’ definition, memes are contained in how, “our ideas, ideals, cultures, and customs replicate themselves. Almost like a virus, they travel from person to person through imitation, sharing, and repetition.”

Dawkins proposed that memes are found in the animal kingdom too, suggesting that they have some evolutionary benefit. We are all wired to pass on the memes that serve a purpose. The memes that are not worth sharing quickly die out. A University of Vermont study even found that contagious diseases follow similar transmission patterns to internet memes.

The social networks of today are perfect for transmitting these cultural genes. If a post strikes a chord with the audience, it can go global almost instantly. The most successful memes tend to capture a moment, a thought, or feeling in a visual, social media-friendly format.