What is a meme?
A meme is a piece of content (an image, video, or text) that is humorous in nature, spreads quickly across the internet, and can be remixed and transformed over time. In a more general context, it’s an idea that spreads quickly from person to person within a culture.
You’ve likely heard of memes within the context of social media, where they are generally captured within a social media post in the form of images or videos with overlaying text. The key components of a meme are that they are relatable, relevant, funny, and easily shareable. Memes are a great social media marketing tactic for brands to engage their audience in a fun, lighthearted way and to help them humanize their brand. We also use memes in our own social media marketing and they tend to be the posts that get the highest engagement:
What is the word meme short for?
The word “meme” comes from the Greek mimema, meaning something that has been “imitated.” According to Britannica, the word was first introduced by Richard Dawkins, a British biologist, in his book The Selfish Gene; his intention was for “meme” to sound similar to "gene.” In his book, Dawkins makes a direct connection between memes and biological genes by stating that both are in control of their own reproduction and thus have the ability to evolve and to be transmitted from person to person.
In Dawkin’s words, a meme is them simply an idea that is transmitted from person to person within a culture. And the “memes that are most successful in being copied and transmitted become the most prevalent within a culture,” says Britannica.
Why are memes so popular on social media?
Memes have become a cornerstone of social media culture. In fact, a whopping 75% of people share memes with friends through social media. Here are a few reasons why memes become so popular on social media:
- They typically reference current events, popular culture, or universal trends, creating a shared understanding that fosters connection between people and that makes them widely relatable to a country, culture, or audience
- They are easy to adapt and transform, many will adapt older memes for ones that include the newest trends or messages, or to make it directly relatable to their own brand
- They are designed to be easily shareable, making them perfect for social media virality
What is an example of a meme?
People and brands have been using memes in their social media marketing for many years already. Here are some examples of memes in the social media feeds of top brands:
The beauty brand has almost three million followers and often sprinkles in memes among its standard User-Generated Content (UGC) posts, like in this tweet-turned-Instagram-post:
Parade rose in popularity rapidly by using Gen Z–friendly marketing tactics. Their content is always timely and based on the biggest trend topics of the moment. In this Instagram post, Parade demonstrates this approach by making a meme that highlights a memorable scene from an episode of Euphoria that aired just the night before:
Scattered in between their beautiful photography and professional graphics, Curology, a skincare brand, sprinkles in the occasional meme. This meme takes a popular scene from the movie Mean Girls and directly relates it to their acne-treating products:
What makes a meme?
Memes are usually made up of either an image or video, overlayed with humorous text, that have the ability to be easily shared widely across social media platforms. Here are the key components that make up a meme:
- Relatable. This is a core element of a successful meme. They summarize a widespread feeling that everyone can relate to.
- Witty. Memes are clever and funny. They have a way of putting obvious things succinctly in a way that we hadn’t thought of before.
- Entertaining. With the combination of relatability and wittiness, memes can be an incredibly fun piece of content, like being in on an inside joke shared with thousands of others.
- Virality. Because they are easy to share and relatable, they become perfect pieces of content for social media virality.
- Adaptable. Memes need to have the ability to be adapted and transformed so that each new person or brand can add their own humorous spin to the meme content.
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