How to Do Meme Marketing, According to Memelord Jason Levin – InstantFollowerz

When most people see memes popping up, they don’t think much of them.

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“Oh, it’s just a stupid meme page,” you might say. “What is there to think about? What’s the big deal?” But what if I told you that some of these “stupid meme sites” are making millions?

And what if I told you that it’s not just meme sites, some of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley and the world’s most famous luxury brands are also using memes to make millions? Would you also start thinking about how to use memes in your marketing? Of course you would!

Meme marketing uses the power of humor to gain attention online, but humor-based marketing is nothing new. It’s been done for hundreds of years since newspaper ads in the 1700s for magical hair growth potions.

Meme marketing is just its latest internet version. And it’s used by the biggest brands in the world — from Duolingo to Porsche, Sony and more.

As Gen Z and Gen Alpha take over and become the next class of founders, CEOs and CMOs, I believe this trend will only continue to grow.

Here’s why you should implement it into your marketing strategy ASAP.

Memes are the biggest marketing tool in the world.

Leverage is all about getting more results with less work.

Meme marketing is not some magical get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a pull lever like anything else. And I think it’s one of the strongest out there.

Think about it. memes are:

1. Free to make
2. It’s quick to make
3. An easy way to go viral

What could be more leverage than that?

Once I realized this, I became obsessed with understanding the tricks of meme marketing.

I interviewed every meme lord, meme marketer, and meme site operator I could find: a meme lord who sold a content agency for $1M+, a growth hacker at a $100M+ fintech startup whose main growth tactic was ads on meme sites to scaled , and startup founder who grew $3M in SaaS sales from viral memes and sold his company for $100M+.

Then I wrote all about it in my book Memes make millions.

But I didn’t just write about tactics.

I put the tactics into action to prove they work. I tweet memes like crazy and get millions of views every month.

I went viral and got over 26 million views for a video of me reading meme-y books on the New York subway. I even went viral in Paris and became a meme!

All this attention has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as a marketing consultant helping startups go viral (and blow up the internet).

So how does meme marketing work?

Step 1. Learn the industry and trends.

If you tried to pay me $100,000 to make hockey memes, I couldn’t.

I know nothing about hockey (except that Canadians are strangely good at it for some reason). But I can make memes about startups and venture capital all day.

I live and breathe startups. I am listing them All-In and My first million. I go to tech parties. I read books. I work with startups all day every day, and many of my friends are founders/VCs.

I’m on the timeline all day and I interact with people in this world. I’m deep in this world. And I can make viral memes day and night.

takeaway: You can only make memes about industries you are deep into.

You can make memes about any industry, from hockey to gardening to healthcare to startups. The main thing is that you have to know the zeitgeist and what is happening.

Because the world of memes is so fast paced, I actually started a daily newsletter with new viral memes help people understand the zeitgeist of memes.

Step 2. Know the problems.

Good memes come from problems your industry is facing.

If you look at the best meme sites in finance, technology, whatever, the best memes are usually about problems you’re facing.

If you’re in accounting, you know about Excel. If you’re in startups, you’re a meme about VCs partying in France.

If you’re creating memes for your brand, become hyper-focused on the problems your users face. If you work on writing software, you better know what problems writers face (eg writer’s block, not getting enough caffeine, etc.).

Step 3. Know who you cannot offend.

This is something super underrated that most SOCIAL MEDIA managers don’t think about.

It’s actually okay to offend some people. I don’t mean using offensive language like insults or loaded words — that’s never okay.

But it’s okay to make fun of a work group like accountants or YouTubers. You just have to be careful and selective about who and whom you offend who you don’t want to offend or make fun of.

For example, at one startup I work with, the product is focused on helping the founders, so we never try to insult the founders. Instead, we pick VCs (they’re easy targets).

In another startup, the customer was engineers, so we never tried to choose engineers. Instead, we chose product managers (again, another easy target).

Step 4. Embrace the crisis.

Is it making money?

I don’t think so.

After all, I’ve proven that memes make millions.

Memes are a powerful marketing tactic used by everyone from solo creators to public companies like Netflix. Stop worrying about being creepy and focus on being funny and making money.

Cringe is the new cool. Become an arbitrage arbitrage. When you’re willing to step up and do things that others are afraid to do, you can get a lot more attention online.

Step 5. Master the tools.

Tools and software are actually the least important part.

Speed ​​is the most important thing.

Yes, you can use paid software like Photoshopbut you can just as easily use free software like imgflip hours Canvas. Really just use what’s fastest.

My advice? Don’t overthink the tools.

This is not a graphic design business – this is meme marketing. Don’t worry about high fidelity, just focus on being funny. Because remember, in the attention economy, being funny makes millions.

The Takeaway

“Humor is associated with strength. To have a sense of humor is to be strong: to keep a sense of humor is to reject misfortunes, and to lose a sense of humor is to be wounded by them. And that’s why it’s a sign — or at least a prerogative — of strength not to take yourself too seriously.

The self-confident will often, swallow-like, appear to be making a little mockery of the whole process, as Hitchcock does in his films or Bruegel in his paintings – or Shakespeare, for that matter.” – Paul Graham, the keys

Or I even wrote in my book, “Never underestimate a joker because he can be a king in disguise.”

From a 22-year-old New York nerd posting finance memes to startups creating Silicon Valley memes to publicly traded companies using meme marketing — they’re all proof that being stupid online can help you make some serious money.