Every brand is on social media these days. It’s pretty much a no-brainer for modern marketing. But just doing social media marketing isn’t necessarily enough. Because everybody is doing it, you have to think about how you can differentiate yourself from the pack. What can you do on social media to make yourself stand out from your competitors?
This article argues for getting weird and expressing your brand’s unique personality on social media. Not just because it’s fun for you but also because it’s an effective social media marketing strategy that can help you grow your following, get more engagement, improve brand recognition, and reach your business’s goals.
Reasons to Get Weird on Social Media
A smart marketer, business owner, or social media manager knows that decisions about social media marketing should be strategic. It’s not enough just to try different things and see what sticks. Before you start executing a social media marketing plan, you need to sit down and create a thoughtful social media marketing strategy.
As part of this process, you’ll clarify your business’s marketing goals and decide how you can use social media to help reach them. You’ll look at your competitors’ social media, think about your target audience, and define a budget.
You’ll also define the voice and tone you want to use in your social media copy. Like with everything else, you’ll want to do this thoughtfully. After all, the right tone for the trendy gastropub isn’t going to be the same as the right tone for a criminal law firm.
That being said, know that when it comes to your brand’s voice, you don’t have to sound professional and authoritative just because you’re a law firm. You can also sound silly, weird, and even a little awkward.
Choosing this type of brand voice can be a powerful decision that helps you grow your business. Here are some of the reasons why.
Stand Out
The first reason why getting weird on social media is worthwhile is because it makes you stand out. This is especially the case if you are in a traditionally stuffier or more conservative industry.
Look at your competitors’ social media accounts. What does their brand voice sound like? Are they being straightforward, clear, and predictable?
Now think about the idea that, if you choose to get weird, yours will be a unique and unusual voice among a chorus of otherwise similarly dry ones. By default, you’ll stand out more and have a better chance of getting your audience’s attention.
Start Conversations
What content do you want to engage with when you’re scrolling through your social media feeds? The accounts that are posting straightforward, ordinary content? Or the ones making jokes, posting memes, making outrageous claims, and being silly?
The answer is probably pretty clear here.
Because, of course, there might be people who will want to like, comment on, and share social media posts that are more about being authoritative, informative, and average. But the types of internet content that spark conversation, drive engagement, and even go viral are the ones that are so unusual that they can capture people’s attention and make them stop scrolling.
Be Memorable
A big part of social media is building your brand, helping people to identify it more easily, and remember it for longer. A solid social media strategy uses a consistent and clear brand voice to create brand recognition, brand awareness, and brand recall – all of which are important, but let’s focus on the latter for a moment.
Brand recall measures the consumer’s ability to remember a brand. This goes beyond brand recognition and brand awareness. With simple brand recognition, a consumer will be able to see your logo and identify it as yours. With brand awareness, they will not just know your brand’s name, logo, and colours, but also what your brand stands for and is known for.
And with brand recall, consumers will be able to do that all on their own, thinking of your brand when they think of your industry and the type of product or service you offer. When you have good brand recall, you are essentially “living in your audience’s heads rent-free.” And this can translate to your business increasing its market share.
So how can you be memorable enough to have good brand recall? Science tells us that three things make something memorable: attention, novelty, and emotion. And weird social media accounts can accomplish all three things by hooking the consumer, offering something new, and creating feelings of surprise, humour, or shock.
Reach the “Young People”
Gen Z and millennials make up more than half of the population. This means that any successful social media strategy will keep them in mind. And both generations are known for having senses of humour that are notoriously weird and absurd, even random and nonsensical.
So if you want to reach these generations with your social media marketing, it can help you tremendously to meet them where they are and speak their language. And their language is nothing if not weird.
In Conclusion
So, yes, being weird on social media works. The proof is in the pudding. So go ahead and call a permanent social media casual Friday. Let loose and have some fun (and some puns). Track the results; we have a feeling you’ll like what you see.