Using humour to keep your readers coming back for more.

Can you make humour part of your brand personality, or do you take yourself far to seriously for this to work? If you can work in some humour into your posts, do you think you should?

When having a sense of humour works with your brand identity, it can be a very powerful tool, especially with regard to social media platforms such as , Pinterest and Instagram. Using humour in your posts is a great way to grab some attention.

[bctt tweet=”Using humour in your posts is a great way to grab some attention”]

What is your sense of humour?

Defining the tone of your humour that matches with your readership can make your brand not only more memorable, but can be the catalyst for starting off conversations and will encourage more post shares, re tweets and likes.

You can use this to your advantage as part of your social media toolkit, but setting the right tone is really important if you want to engage your followers rather than confuse or offend them. No matter what tone your eventually choose to set, you must remember that your posts should include these three elements wherever possible, or at the least strive for two out of the three at very least:

  • Help your follower
  • Pass on useful information
  • Be amusing

Sitting at the drawing board, you need to ask yourself how well your online and offline identity works together. Do your online followers have the same impression of you as your offline customers? Would a humours tone work well in one setting, but not the other? How do your customers and followers perceive you – funny, friendly, reserved, laid-back, traditional, cheeky, edgy, quirky, posh?

If injecting a sense of humour into your branding and marketing would not suit your image, or doesn’t fit with your target audience, then humour is not for you. You would never associate the bawdy humour of ‘Are You Being Served’ with a more reserved brand image such as Mark’s & Spencer’s for example. M&S would be more suited to a gentle humour that your own mother would be comfortable with.

Having fun with your online fans

If having a sense of humour fits with your brand, then there is no harm in having a little fun with your fans, as long as you remember to continue to answer genuine concerns, queries and complaints along the way.

You may choose to share amusing images in your posts, but remember to ensure that you include your company branding in there somewhere. People are more than happy to share a funny picture or cartoon with their friends, and if that image carries your branding along with it, your name will gain more recognition along the way.

Invite your fans to ask a member of your staff a question one day a week, for example hold a ‘Mechanic Monday’, or ‘Ask Aunty Annie Friday’ where fans can ask any question they like, from ‘how to I change a broken indicator bulb’ to ‘what is the meaning of life’, or ‘how do I avoid a soggy bottom’ to ‘Jaffa Cakes – biscuits or cakes’? These are guaranteed to get the conversation rolling, and can be classed as both humorous as well as informative when you can genuinely help someone with a problem.

Tell A Joke Or Funny Story

Martin Lewis (Money Saving Expert) is well known for telling a really terrible joke each Friday. His fans have come to expect this from him, and also expect it to be dreadful, but the amount of comments and engagement he attracts each week has grown exponentially since he started doing it. A great hook, and goes to prove that you don’t have to be good at telling jokes to make humour work for you!

Credit: www.innocentdrinks.co.uk

Credit: www.innocentdrinks.co.uk

Innocent Drinks have had great fun this year on social media telling the story about the antics of their 4th Floor Stapler. The stapler was never supposed to be removed from the 4th Floor of Innocent Towers, so of course the said stapler has now pretty much been photographed travelling the world and appearing at events, and has even been scuba diving! Not bad for a cheap, generic piece of office equipment.

Your Turn!

Using humour in your posts will help them to become more memorable and shareable, and will help to define your brand personality. The key to success is to know what your fans sense of humour is like, and what they would find funny.

Take some time to work out a tactic that will fit with your brand and work with your fans – and don’t forget to include your branding or logo on any pictures you create yourself!

 

Credit: www.trackur.com

Credit: www.trackur.com