The Internet is full of various types of content, so sometimes it’s really hard to attract people’s attention. The huge piece of text is almost incomprehensible for the ordinary person, because we don’t like reading these times. Our minds are more adapted to see the pictures – that’s why an image provided with a sentence or two looks better than enormous explanation of particular problem.
The Power Of Meme!
What is an Internet Meme?
A piece of content which spreads from person to person via the currently existed communication technologies in the Internet. This type of information is replicating through the Internet only and as pictures, videos, sentences or just a single word, but regardless of its shape it has to be popular online.
Quote from Wikipedia.org
In view of the definition above, memes usage is familiar to us with the Internet. However, it’s also popular in the real world, maybe even more than we’ve expected. Why? Because we can equate memes with all the associations with the well-known images, people or famous quotes from movies and clips, etc.
However, memes have their beginning in times before Internet was invented – it was an alternative to huge long-winded articles on social topics. People expressed their dissatisfaction with then-current economical situation, so they had just left their thoughts on the walls, with smiling or sad faces.
What is the cause of memes popularity?
Here are the most obvious reasons:
- It’s so easy to create them, because the Internet is full of meme generator websites, eg. memegenerator.net,
- They are cheap, theoretically free,
- People treat them as jokes which make them laugh and feel positive emotions,
- Use of them enriches the content, especially the branded one,
- It’s also a great way to loosen the atmosphere of a content with lots of difficult terms, like here: The Mathematics of Google Trust Rank – Our CMO’s SEO Predictions.
What Is The Biggest Advantage Of Memes?
They are viral, spreading really fast through our minds. It’s an easy way for Internet users to share their own opinions on any subject.
The meme’s shape is simple and repeatable, so it’s easy to tell the difference between them and other works of popculture.
We can be sure that the idea we want to share with somebody using meme will be understood (only if the the person to whom the message is sent knows the sense).
The way to make your own meme is really simple, especially when there are a lot of meme generators in the Internet. Sometimes we don’t have to use the image to create it, because the same sentence is a meme.
The Most Popular Memes Subjects:
- Animals are saying people’s thoughts,
- Children are saying or doing things adults usually do,
- Sentences from popular series or movies,
- Popular videos or images from TV series or movies,
- Famous quotes,
- Sentences like “That moment when you realize…” or “I don’t always… but when I do…”.
Memes – Are They Really Free?
On the whole, it’s theoretically true, however there is an image rights obstacle. It is especially important in the event of commercial or non-profit use. The image of Fry from a cartoon called Futurama is the intellectual property of Hollywood Studios, the rights to “Success Kid” image have its parents.
Use The Meme! My Favourite Situations
- When we want to loosen the tone of a critical statement – one of the greatest examples is a Search Engine Journal post, where they commented a mechanism of local searching results,
- Sometimes I send a meme in a message to support teams of various companies, because I don’t want to be treated like another boring client. The answers contain usually other meme, which is a funny reply to mine.
How To Measure The User Engagement?
Memes often icrease the engagement – we should measure it based on:
- How your content affects the number of visitors,
- What is the popularity of articles containing memes in comparison with the other ones? It should help you to know what engages them mostly,
- Try to measure social media also, not only the dirtect links to your content.
Memes are one of the most excellent add-ons if you want to make your content more attractive. However, they can’t upstage the verbal layer of the article, should be an interlude between huge text parts which explains some of the different terms in a funny way.
Do you often use memes in content designing?
What are your favourites and why?