A few articles back we talked about the power of a meme. Now, if you are on Facebook you have no doubt seen any one of a million memes come across your feed. You know the ones, overly-manly man, success kid, y u no troll… Each of these meme characters have taken on a life of their own with millions of variations on the text. You can thank sites like Meme Generator for this. Offering people the power to create unlimited variations of each meme, sites like this are literally flooding social media networks.
Is this a bad thing? Yes and no… Makes a ton of sense, right? It may make more sense than you realize. While we might have discussed the positive aspect of the meme in our last post what we didn’t discuss was that memes can present a dark side as well.
A Walk on the Wild Side
While it may seem like memes present unlimited opportunity to go viral with a catchy headline, in truth the wrong meme can be catastrophic. For example, send out a meme showing a political candidate with a headline you find amusing and watch how quickly you polarize people. While some may be amused at your wit, others may turn on your brand in a heartbeat. Unless you are looking to alienate a portion of the populace, stay away from potentially charged memes like those that could be considered political or racially charged.
Watch Your Ps & Qs
The text that you choose for your meme can have a great effect as well. It could be seen in a negative light just as quickly if you are not careful about what you say or how you say it. The most well-meaning phrases can come across horribly wrong if taken out of context. While it may sound defeatist in nature take the time to sit down and think about how the text you are adding to your meme could be taken out of context. While you will never be able to reach a point where it will be taken at 100% face value you can lessen the chance of someone turning it on you.
Memes are indeed powerful tools, but just like any other tool they can be used for good or bad. Make sure to cover all your bases when creating memes for your brand, and you will lessen the chances that they may come back to bite you in the end.