Trying on humor for size? Make sure it fits your company.
Does your company’s mission statement include LOL? For some companies, being funny is a core part of who their company is and how it does business. For others, it’s an occasional strategy to connect with customers. Should your company be the class clown, or is serious more your style?
Humor Helps You Bond with Your Customers
When we laugh together, we share a positive experience that connects us. As your customers laugh at an advertisement, a logo, or at blog content, they feel a connection with you. This connection is something that people build businesses around. Quick: what’s something you read online last week? Chances are you remember a funny meme or blog or something that gave you another emotional reaction, such as sadness. Emotions connect people to content, and this means that they feel more connection to your brand.
Being Funny Encourages People to Share
When you crack a joke, either in an image or in written content, this encourages people to share. Many bloggers and social media personalities have made humor their way of bringing their message to the world. For example, George Takei’s social media posts deal with social issues, but he also picks up on funny content and shares memes that encourage his fans to share. These funny posts bring more people to his social media accounts. When you’re funny, people want to share what you’ve written, and combining the light with the hard-hitting can draw people into the deeper content of your business.
In a best case scenario, humor helps you bond with your customers and will encourage them to share.
How Companies Use Humor
If you decide that funny is right for you, this doesn’t mean that you need to go around telling jokes. Humor takes many forms. For some companies, this means adopting words and visuals that are subtly amusing, giving yourself a friendly demeanor. Want to have dinner at Juan in a Million, honey? Some create ads that are gently playful and relatively inoffensive, such as Honda’s take on karaoke – done by sheep. Other companies such as Bud Light are more edgy, combining politics and innuendo. Whether you’re using humor to gently move people toward your brand or using it for its shock value, it can build a connection with your customers.
Is Humor an Appropriate Strategy?
Whether it’s a knock-knock joke or a wry comment about marriage, every type of humor has an audience. The key is to make sure that your humor is consistent with your audience, or with those you’d like to have in your audience. If you’re going to play on some of the challenges people face in married life, expect that this will appeal to your customers who appreciate jokes about marriage. If your target audience is teens, you’re probably going to miss the mark. Humor can also be offensive, particularly if it pokes fun at a particular social group or uses stereotypes or triggers such as sex and violence, even if it’s purely in jest. Tread carefully in your use of humor, testing advertising out on a test audience before sending it out into the world.
Make a Match with Your Brand
In addition to getting your audience right, make sure that your sense of humor works with the overall feel of your brand. If your products scream classy, you’ll either alienate those who are dedicated to your brand by using potty humor, or you’ll shock your audience and make a sensation. Humor involves risk: you need to decide if this is a limb you want to climb on. Is there a really good piece of fruit hanging on the end?
As you develop your brand voice, contact Media Shower. Our team of professional writers and editors will work with you to develop a content strategy and create content that’s in sync with your brand. Contact us today to create an account and order three free content ideas.