Should You Use Comedy in Your Content Marketing?
Because of my RBF (resting bored face), I don’t particularly look like a person who can teach you about comedy—but I’ve written comedic nonfiction for publications, coached with a professional improv troupe, and performed at and emceed events. My sense of humor not only makes me a great dinner guest, but it also makes me a good marketer.
At its core, comedy is about connection and storytelling, two things that matter very deeply to marketing experts. Comedians use these skills to make you laugh, and marketers use these skills to make you click that “buy” button. So, when you pair comedy and marketing content, you have a powerful combo that leverages laughter to convert.
Wendy’s does it. Old Spice does it. And when Squatty Potty’s CEO went behind stakeholders’ backs and launched an ice cream-pooping unicorn campaign a decade ago, the toilet stool brand’s online sales increased 600%.
Why? Well, first of all, in a world where depression is on the rise and everything feels metaphorically on fire, consumers relish any little taste of levity they can get. And secondly, when appropriate, humor can help people seem smarter, sound confident and be more creative. It can have the same effect for brands, too!
Is comedic content a right fit for your brand
Before you dive headfirst into comedy concrete, you should seriously consider whether or not humor meshes well with your brand identity and content marketing strategy. There are four questions you first need to ask yourself—and key company stakeholders—to ensure you’re ready to get laughs on LinkedIn.
1. Is it on brand?
Humor is not right for every business. Take a long look at your industry and brand identity to determine if humor is both plausible and appropriate. Even if your products or services aren’t that serious, you still need to cultivate a sense of humility and levity before you ever tell your first knock-knock joke.
2. Is it what your audience wants?
Humor isn’t always welcome. Study your psychographic and demographic data to decide if your audience is open to it. Hell, you can even conduct a survey to ask your audience directly. If you do, consider putting together some funny social posts and asking respondents to rate them on their humor.
3. Is your company capable?
Humor is not a formula, nor is it a skill you can easily acquire on Coursera. You need a clever content marketing team that is adept at effortless and effective humor. That team needs to be included in the decision-making process to start incorporating comedy into your content. Confidence is critical.
4. Does it add significant value?
Humor is not content; it’s content enhancement. If humor neither enhances your current content nor converts content to sales, it’s probably not for you. Consumers are smart, and they’ll be able to see through the ruse if you start dropping funny memes simply to sell more stuff.
How do you incorporate comedy into your content
If you can emphatically answer, “Yes!” to each of the questions above, then humor may be an impactful content marketing tactic for your brand. Once you’ve made up your mind to add humor, there are several best practices you can follow to strengthen your brand’s funny bone.
1. Find your company’s funny bone.
Appoint ambassadors within your company to write and vet content. Everyone is funny in their own way, but be sure to choose people whose sense of humor has a wide appeal and a natural quality. You can even use the increase of comedic content as an opportunity to create levity in the workplace. Share some of your ideas with coworkers and let their collective reactions guide your strategy.
Result: teamwork
2. Call back to previous content.
Reshare old content in a way that feels fresh. You can take a serious post from 2017 and rediscover the humor in it, or bring back an old joke with the hashtag #FF (Flashback Friday). Your new customers get a good impression, and your recurring customers are reminded of their relationship with your company. After all, as comedian Bo Burnham says in his song What’s Funny?, “Humor is often linked to shared experience.”
Result: loyalty
3. Laugh with your audience.
Although the #RoastMe thread on Reddit, where people post photos of themselves and solicit others’ cleverest insults, is a hot topic with nearly 450,000 weekly visitors, it’s never a good idea to demean your audience. But the reason why the (well-moderated) #RoastMe forum works is that everyone has explicit permission to laugh with each other. Your content should make it clear that your audience has permission to laugh, too. This isn’t only for your audience’s sake, it’s for your own. If your content isn’t clearly intentional, people will laugh at you rather than with you.
Result: relationships
4. Poke fun at yourself.
The ability to laugh at yourself makes you more approachable, but beyond that, it also puts you on equal social status with your audience. If done well, self-deprecating humor is an easy way to avoid a holier-than-thou tone in your content and to endear customers to your brand. Be sure, though, that the joke is directed solely at your business and not at your employees, your communities or your industry.
Result: humility
5. Nod to pop culture.
It’s difficult to relate to everyone at the same time, but pop culture can get you pretty close. Most people are impacted by pop culture in one way or another, making it a fast track to relatability. Capitalize on other companies’ content by playfully and meaningfully engaging them on Instagram. Respond to celebrities’ tweets or use one of the trending hashtags on X. Promote a product or service with a meme or a GIF on Facebook. Not only does this make you more relatable, but it also makes your content more shareable.
Result: relevance
6. Be true to yourself.
As cliché as it is, this piece of advice is vital. Choose the type of humor and content that’s right for your brand, and set guidelines and guardrails to ensure your humorous content feels like it fits. And remember that humor can be many things: hahaha!, ha!, and ah-ha!. A smirk from clever copy may be more “you” than a belly laugh from silly one-liners. When you know which type of humor is best for your business, be consistent to boost customer retention.
Result: brand recognition
Where to get serious support for humor in marketing
How can you be totally sure that comedy is right for your content? Well, it’s funny you should ask. At Elevate My Brand, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, even though we take our work and our clients’ trust seriously. We believe humor taps into a deeper, more human part of consumers than nearly anything else, so we always strive to connect brands with their sense of humor.
If you need support in knowing who you are as a brand and how best to incorporate comedy into your content, we’d love to elevate you! Whether you choose to wander into the world of comedy on your own or with a marketing agency partner, just remember to be kind to yourself—getting good at comedy is about trial and error. You can do this!
And if you do encounter errors along the way, don’t forget about Tip #4.
Cody H. Owens,
Content Director
Want to read some more shit?
Brands that are curious about adding comedy to their content may also be curious about curse words. To swear, or not to swear? That is the question... that we already answered in another blog post.
