Many companies go after engagement in social media. Others go directly for sales. If you can get both engagement and sales at the same time, that’s the holy grail. In this post, we’ll talk about both, using a type of post that not everyone has already worn out.
Engagement itself is valuable because it:
There are many types of Facebook posts that create engagement. But few companies have taken full advantage of memes, which is crazy because we want Facebook posts that get shares, and…
A meme is “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture”.
You can take any of your own images and turn them into memes with this tool: https://makeameme.org/upload
For example:
Or use one of the standard memes: https://makeameme.org/. This is a much better way to go, because you’re going to hit things that people recognize and that are relatable. The dangerous of creating your own new meme is: if no one understands it, it won’t succeed.
Want to see more examples of memes created by all kinds of people? Try http://memegenerator.net/.
You’ll notice that it’s typical with meme images to have text at the top and bottom of the image. But if you want to promote your meme image with Facebook ads, you’ll need to put all your text at the top or bottom online to adhere to Facebook’s 20% text rule. Otherwise they will disapprove your ad. And if you’ve listened to any of my other teachings, you know that your reach is going to be pretty limited without Facebook ads.
The general idea with Facebook post engagement is to do anything fun, funny or emotion-provoking to get likes and shares.
As I said above, you can do this JUST for engagement, or you can also try to tie it into your sales message, which is even better.
While creating your meme image, connect what you’re writing to:
I talk about those above elements in the Social Marketing Profit System videos on Facebook copywriting. Basically, there are a few things you need to know about your offering and your customers, you need to be able to write about those things in a powerful way, and then turn that into great ad copy.
Here’s an example of how I’d use “The Most Interesting Man In The World” to promote my social media courses:
So the blueprint is:
Make sure you choose a meme that is either:
Some of the best memes to use are:
If any of the above memes don’t make sense to you, don’t use them! I’ve been looking at memes for about eight years, so if this is new to you, you”ll actually have a better idea which ones make sense to the general audience (who doesn’t know all the memes like I do).
Always put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Will they think any one particular meme is weird or great? For example: is your customer the type to watch Star Trek? If not, maybe don’t use the Annoyed Picard meme. But if they’re big nerds, Annoyed Picard could be perfect.
Here’s the That Would Be Great Meme, for example…
Do you see how you can use a character’s voice as the excuse to say something you wouldn’t normally be able to? Or in a way you wouldn’t be able to? It frees you to be able to sell better.
And don’t forget about the 20% text rule! Put your captions all on top or all on the bottom if you want to be sure you can advertise them.
Then combine your new meme image with a call-to-action and a link in your post (to a site where they can take action, like buy something or sign up for your emails)… then promote the post with ads to your best customers!
I’ve written elsewhere about the Facebook Benchmarks I debuted at the Amazing.com conference, but the short version is:
Try 5 or 10 of these over a few weeks. And it’s ok to try different versions of the same meme- it’s not like you can only use them once- I would rotate through them initially. But after a month or two you could go back and say something different with a meme you’ve used before.
As with all of Facebook, continuous testing to find the best creative is the name of the game.
Over time, you’ll see which of them get the best engagement rates and the lowest cost per engagement, and which ones get sales and which ones don’t, just like any posts or ads.
Keep creating and keep testing. That’s how the best Facebook marketers do it!