Should Pop Culture Be Part of Your Social Media Strategy?
Should Pop Culture Be Part of Your Social Media Strategy?
As a digital marketing expert, I’ve witnessed the magnetic pull of pop culture within the social media strategies of many brands. It’s almost as though pop culture is the lifeblood of the digital ecosystem.
I vividly recall one particular instance when we managed a small local brand, teetering on the edge of obscurity. We took a bold step and embraced pop culture, specifically utilizing memes, as part of our content strategy.
Those visual, pithy, and culturally resonant snippets soon became our trump card, appealing to the brand’s young, tech-savvy demographic. My primary tip is to always ensure your memes are culturally sensitive, relevant, and timely. Pop culture moves fast; don’t be the brand left languishing behind with an outdated meme reference. Each meme you use should resonate, entertain, and subtly promote your brand ethos.
Tip 2
Boost Visibility With Pop Culture Trends
Taryn Shillady-Duncan, Marketing Director, Lee Myles Southeast PA
As a marketing director, I strongly believe that pop culture should be a part of a brand’s social media strategy. Embracing pop culture trends can significantly boost online visibility and engage a wider audience. Ignoring pop culture is like keeping a door locked, missing out on valuable opportunities.
One tip for incorporating pop culture is to stay informed and agile. Monitor trends, understand your target audience’s interests, and create relevant content that aligns with those trends. By leveraging pop culture references thoughtfully, brands can enhance their social media presence, connect with their audience on a relatable level, and ultimately drive engagement and growth.
Absolutely! Incorporating pop culture into a brand’s social media strategy can be as refreshing as a mojito on a scorching summer day. It adds a sprinkle of relatability to engage the elusive millennial and Gen Z audience.
Remember Wendy’s epic Twitter clapbacks? They flawlessly blended memes and humor, and their following skyrocketed like a SpaceX rocket. So here’s a tip: Be a pop culture chameleon!
Keep your eyes peeled for viral trends, movie releases, or trending hashtags. Adapt them creatively to your brand’s voice, just like a fashionista rocking a versatile little black dress. But tread lightly, my friend.
Avoid controversial topics like pineapple on pizza—unless you want a Twitter war hotter than a jalapeno pepper. Embrace pop culture, ride the wave, and watch your brand sail into social media stardom!
My marketing company works with funeral homes. That is a delicate space to navigate on social media. A lot of the advice people give and the trends you see don’t really apply to sensitive areas like death care.
A poorly executed social media strategy can be detrimental to even a well-established firm. The main thing is to put your customers first, and not the internet as a whole. You can easily create messaging that resonates with a demographic you don’t serve and that simultaneously offends your target customers.
Stick with what your customers want from you as a brand. That likely means avoiding the latest trends, but it also means avoiding some major pitfalls.
Although pop culture is a huge driving force in marketing, it certainly does not need to be a part of a brand’s overall social media strategy. In fact, many brands succeed just as well, and even better, by ignoring or going against the pop culture trends.
In my experience, brands should do their best to evaluate their position in accordance with pop culture and make moves according to data, not according to what pop culture demands.
Adding a pinch of pop culture to your brand’s social media strategy is always a good thing, and I’ve had many great successes taking this approach.
What worked best for me was incorporating buzzwords into my content strategy and also utilizing them as hashtags. Buzzwords are a simple and easy way to start incorporating pop culture into your brand, and you can never go wrong with buzzwords.
There can’t be a one-size-fits-all answer to this question. It’d depend on many things including brand voice and target audience.
Many B2C brands successfully incorporate pop culture trends and tropes in their social media content to make it more relatable and shareworthy. When the target audience is millennials and the Gen Z population, pop culture-infused content can work quite well. This target audience is likely to respond better to playful and trendy content over plain and mundane content.
On the other hand, in B2B marketing, the use of pop culture in social media content may not necessarily work well for all brands. For some brands, it could go completely against the tonality and image that they’re trying to build.
But again, as B2B content is increasingly becoming more humanized and empathetic, it’s an idea that B2B brands can play around with. They can consider including pop culture elements as long as they can carefully balance between professional and informal.
Tip 8
Target Demographics To Determine Pop Culture Relevance
Tristan Harris, Demand Generation Senior Marketing Manager, Thrive Digital Marketing Agency
The target demographic you’re attempting to reach will ultimately determine relevance. Are you hoping to attract Gen Z and Millennials to your brand? Or are you targeting older people with your marketing? Pop culture will always be popular with individuals of all ages and backgrounds, regardless of demographic.
Holidays, sports, and music are all examples of pop culture everyone can relate to, but understanding what attracts particular demographics is essential for effective marketing. Gen Z and Millennials have more specialized interests than previous generations because they grew up utilizing the Internet and social media.
Visual media like memes and GIFs are essential if you want to connect with young people. They frequently favor contemporary fashion and cultural phenomena. If you’re attempting to connect with older consumers, referencing classic pop cultures like music and movies can evoke nostalgia.
Should Pop Culture Be Part of Your Social Media Strategy?
You’ve heard what the experts had to say, now it is your turn. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
