Monthly Archives: September 2024

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When most people see memes pop up, they don’t think much about them.

“Oh it’s just a stupid meme page,” you might say. “What’s there to think about? What’s the big deal?” But what if I told you some of these “stupid meme pages” are making millions?

And what if I told you it wasn’t just meme pages, but some of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups and the world’s most iconic luxury brands are using memes to make millions, too? Would you start thinking about how to use memes in your marketing too? Of course you would!

Meme marketing leverages the power of humor to get attention on the internet, but humor-based marketing isn’t a new thing. It’s been done for hundreds of years since newspaper ads in the 1700s for magical hair growth potions.

Meme marketing is just the newest internet-native version of it. And it’s been used by the biggest brands in the world — from Duolingo to Porsche, Sony, and more.

As Gen Z and Gen Alpha take hold and become the next class of founders, CEOs, and CMOs, I believe this trend will only continue to grow.

Here’s why you should implement it in your marketing strategy ASAP.

Memes are the highest leverage marketing on earth.

Leverage is all about achieving bigger results with less work.

Meme marketing isn’t some magical get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a lever to pull like anything else. And I think it’s one of the strongest out there.

Think about it. Memes are:

Free to make
Fast to make
An easy way to go viral

What could be higher leverage than that?

When I realized this, I became obsessed with understanding the tricks to meme marketing.

I interviewed every memelord, meme marketer, and meme page operator I could find: a memelord who sold a content agency for $1M+, a growth hacker at a fintech startup worth $100M+ whose main growth tactic has been ads on meme pages to grow it, and a startup founder who drove $3M+ in SaaS sales from viral memes and sold his company for $100M+.

Then, I wrote all about it in my book Memes Make Millions.

But I didn’t just write about the tactics.

I put the tactics into action to prove they worked. I tweet memes like a madman and get millions of views every month.

I went viral and got 26M+ views for a video of me reading meme-y books on the New York Subway. I even went viral in Paris and got turned into a meme!

All this attention has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as a marketing consultant helping startups go viral (and blow up the internet).

So, how does meme marketing work?

Step 1. Learn the industry and trends.

If you tried paying me $100k to make memes about hockey, I couldn’t do it.

I know nothing about hockey (except that Canadians are weirdly good at it for some reason). But I can make memes about startups and venture capital all day.

I live and breathe startups. I listen to All-In and My First Million. I go to the tech parties. I read the books. I work with startups all day everyday, and many of my friends are founders/VCs.

I’m on the timeline interacting with people in this world all day. I’m deep in this world. And I can make viral memes night and day.

The takeaway: You can only make memes about industries you’re deep in.

You can make memes about any industry from hockey to gardening to healthcare to startups. The main thing is you need to know the zeitgeist and what’s going on.

Because the meme world is so fast-paced, I actually started a daily newsletter with new viral memes to help people figure out the meme zeitgeist.

Step 2. Know the problems.

Good memes come from problems your industry faces.

If you look at the best meme pages across finance, tech, whatever, the best memes are typically about problems you’re facing.

If you’re in accounting, you meme about Excel. If you’re in startups, you meme about VCs taking the summers off to party in France.

If you’re making memes for your brand, become hyper-focused on what problems your users face. If you’re working on software for writers, you better know what problems writers face (e.g., writer’s block, not enough caffeine, etc.).

Step 3. Know who you cannot offend.

This is something super underrated that most social media managers don’t think about.

It’s actually okay to offend some people. I don’t mean using offensive language like insults or charged words — that’s never okay.

But it is okay to poke fun at a job group like accountants or YouTubers. You just have to be thoughtful and selective about who you’re offending and who you don’t want to ever offend or poke fun at.

For example, at one startup I work with, the product is all about helping founders, so we never try to offend founders. Instead, we pick on VCs (they’re easy targets).

At another startup, the customer was engineers, so we never tried to pick on engineers. Instead, we picked on product managers (again, another easy target).

Step 4. Embrace the cringe.

Is making money cringe?

I don’t think so.

After all, I’ve proved that memes make millions.

Memes are a powerful marketing tactic used by everyone from solo creators to public companies like Netflix. Stop worrying about being cringe, and focus on being funny and making money.

Cringe is the new cool. Become a cringe arbitrageur. When you’re willing to be cringe and do things others are afraid of, you can get so much more attention on the internet.

Step 5. Master the tools.

The tools and software are actually the least important part.

Speed is the most important thing.

Yes, you can use paid software like Photoshop, but you can just as easily use free software like Imgflip or Canva. Really just use whatever is the fastest.

My advice? Don’t overthink the tools.

This isn’t a graphic design job — this is meme marketing. Don’t worry about high fidelity, just focus on being funny. Because remember, in the attention economy, being funny makes millions.

The Takeaway

“Humor is related to strength. To have a sense of humor is to be strong: to keep one‘s sense of humor is to shrug off misfortunes, and to lose one’s sense of humor is to be wounded by them. And so the mark — or at least the prerogative — of strength is not to take oneself too seriously.

The confident will often, like swallows, seem to be making fun of the whole process slightly, as Hitchcock does in his films or Bruegel in his paintings — or Shakespeare, for that matter.” – Paul Graham, Taste

Or as I wrote in my book, “Never underestimate the jester because he may be a king in disguise.”

From the 22-year-old NYC goofball posting finance bro memes to the venture-backed startups making memes about Silicon Valley to public companies leveraging meme marketing — they’re all proof that being silly on the internet can help you make serious money.

I know. “AI public relations” (PR) kind of sounds like an oxymoron.

Public relations is about shaping and sharing your human stories with other humans. It’s about capturing and creating genuine human excitement and resonance. How can we ever leave that to the robots?

Well, we can’t — at least not entirely. Like applying AI to digital marketing or any other field, you must be selective and thoughtful about incorporating AI into your public relations strategy. That’s where we come in.

We’ll unpack the pros and cons of using AI in public relations and share some of the smartest use cases and expert tips to help you get the most out of it.

Table of contents

Why Use AI in Public Relations
How is AI used in public relations?

Why Use AI in Public Relations (PR)

Using AI in public relations has many benefits, but they all come back to one all professionals strive for — improved productivity.

Let’s break down the specifics.

Pros of AI Public Relations

Higher Efficiency

HubSpot research found 90% of marketers say AI and automation help them spend less time on manual tasks, more time on the responsibilities they enjoy most (80%), and more time on the creative aspects of their role (79%). Public relations is no exception.

In fact, 76.6% of PR professionals already use AI tools to automate their most tedious and repetitive tasks, according to Prowly.

For PR professionals, AI can mean quicker market and campaign analysis, as well as faster press release and pitch drafting. AI and automation can also help eliminate manual tasks like email follow-ups to your press partners.

Lower Costs

By aiding with time-consuming and mundane tasks, AI can also help minimize unnecessary expenses in your public relations budget.

For example, if you pay a freelancer by the hour to draft press releases, using an AI tool like Jasper or even HubSpot’s Free AI Content Writer can help cut the need for those hours.

Don’t believe me? Prowly found that 43.5% of PR professionals using tools say it has reduced their companies’ overall costs and resource needs. That’s on top of 48.2% reporting they struggled with working with a small budget in the past 12 months.

These small efficiencies add up.

Increased ROI

With lower costs comes the potential for increased return on investment (ROI). Hard to argue with that.

Cons of AI Public Relations

As great as AI sounds for public relations, it still has drawbacks.

Data Quality & Accuracy

Data quality and accuracy are some of the biggest concerns of using AI in public relations or any use case, really.

Most public artificial intelligence runs off information fed from its users and the internet — and I think we all know we can’t trust everything we read online.

Because of this, you can’t always know if the results you get from AI are accurate or based on reliable sources. This can be dangerous when using AI in public relations, especially when doing research.

Be wary of validity and even bias. The last thing you want to do is make strategic decisions based on false or misguided information.

Privacy

There’s no doubt that AI can help expedite your public relations workflow, but that often means sharing details about your brand or company to produce results you can actually use.

AI is currently unregulated, so any information you share is at risk of being stored or passed onto others using the tool, including potentially our competitors.

Lack of Human Touch

Public relations is about human connection. It’s about how your brand or client is perceived by other people and the public at large.

While impressive, AI or automation’s ability can only go far in this arena.

AI can’t create personal relationships and bonds. It can’t take photos with fans, shake hands with potential investors, or attend a charity event. It can’t “read the room” or understand the sensitive nuances of current events or culture.

And its insights and information are only as current as its last update. So. tread lightly when using AI or automation for one-on-one communication.

Without careful editing or strategic use of the tools, its artificial nature can be easy to spot.

This personalization mistake from UK restaurant burgerific is a common one.

Image Source

How is AI used in public relations?

The possibilities of artificial intelligence are pretty boundless, but with the cons and limitations we discussed in mind, here are some of the best use cases in public relations.

1. Drafting press releases and pitches

In one of my first marketing and PR jobs, I wrote and distributed about 2-5 press releases a day. I enjoyed it, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t time-consuming, let alone draining.

I may also have developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from all the typing, but we’re not here to discuss the importance of workspace ergonomics.

With generative AI, you can dramatically reduce your press release and pitch writing time (and maybe even Carpal Tunnel Syndrome).

All you need is a prompt answering these questions:

What is the goal of your press release?
What important information do you have to include?
Who is it intended for?
What tone do you want to use?

To illustrate, I gave ChatGPT this prompt:

“Can you write me a press release about Apple’s September 2024 Product Event? It should include the date and time — Monday, September 9th at 10:00 AM PT and get the general public excited about it.”

Here’s what I got back:

But remember, this should only be a starting point. Neerja Patel, a PR professional of over 15 years and founder and CEO of her own PR firm, advises, “Use AI to enhance your creativity and assist with research and content creation.”

“It shouldn’t replace your thought process or be used as a substitution for your work. The most impactful campaigns that have maximum outcomes are the ones that blend the human mind with AI.”

Pro tip: “To ensure you are telling the best narrative in AI-assisted press releases, include not only important and relevant information but also current world trends,” continues Patel.

“This will help strengthen your messaging, ultimately increasing your chances of garnering attention from journalists and securing stories in publications.”

Also, are you not the savviest with ChatGPT or prompting just yet? Our free guide, “How to Use ChatGPT at Work,” will introduce you to the tool and share best practices and 100 prompt ideas to get you started.

These skills are easily adaptable to other chatbot-style tools like HubSpot’s Free AI Content Writer. You can try them in a tool specifically designed for public relations, like Meltwater.

2. Automating social media engagement

Being able to schedule social media posts for publication frees up a lot of time for marketers and PR professionals, but the use cases for AI and automation don’t end there.

You can also use AI to respond to comments or direct messages automatically.

There are a few options out there for this, but personally, I’m a big fan of the conversational marketing tool ManyChat.

ManyChat can be used to automatically respond to comments on Instagram posts or send a personal message when people use a specific word or phrase. It can also be used with Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

3. Monitoring brand sentiment and reputation

AI and automation can also help keep you keep a pulse on how the public feels about you or your brand. In other words, it can help you monitor brand sentiment and reputation changes.

It all comes back to social listening.

For example, Digimind’s social listening tool “combines Digimind’s AI Sense with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to monitor social media, blogs, reviews, podcasts and more, to detect key events about any brand or topic,” explained MarTech managing editor Constantine von Hoffman.

“It then determines important metrics, such as reach, brand impact, and key mentions sent to ChatGPT to be analyzed and summarized in plain English in real-time.”

Need a more simple or budget-friendly alternative?

Set up Google Alerts for any phrase or keywords you like, such as your brand or product name. For there, Google monitors the web for new content matching your terms and sends an automated email when a new result appears.

It’s free and effortless for you to maintain.

Pro tip: If you’re a HubSpot user, use social inbox streams.

Image Source

These streams allow you to monitor social media for mentions of your brand, product, or other keywords from within your portal.

4. Maintaining your press list(s)

Prowly’s State of PR Technology reports that nearly half of public relations professionals struggle to find relevant media contacts.

Databases like those from Prowly, Cision, and Brandwatch can help, but even once you find your contacts, maintaining the list can be just as hard.

Thankfully, this is one area where AI shines brightest.

For one, AI and automation can help you segment your press contacts into different lists based on their unique specialties or demographics.

You can create one list for television, another for digital media, and others segmented by location, like New York or London.

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AI can also help clean your data by automatically identifying and removing inactive or bounced email addresses, correcting typos in email addresses, and filtering out duplicates.

All this helps reduce list decay and improve deliverability rates.

Pro tip: If you use HubSpot, use smart lists and workflows to keep your press lists current.

Smart lists will automatically update, adding and removing contacts based on the criteria you set, while workflows can be used to clean data in the CRM.

5. Reaching out to media.

AI doesn’t just help you build and maintain your press list; it can help you contact it.

For instance, using automated email tools like HubSpot’s, you can set up follow-up messages for new contacts who download your press/media kit or those who email about press inquiries.

You can even set up a series to follow up with contacts who may not have opened your outreach or have gone dark.

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Rather than having to send out dozens, if not hundreds, of manual emails, automation can scale your outreach efforts and increase your chances of getting

6. Researching

This likely goes without saying, but AI can be a game-changer in public relations research.

Using AI rather than a conventional search engine can make it easier to answer specific queries. Why exactly? Well, there is no need to click through multiple pages and hope you find what you need; AI does that for you.

It crawls the web for related resources and then distills and summarizes the content for you. While it may take a few tries to get the exact information you need, an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Meta AI can save you massive amounts of time scrolling.

(Ai)ding your public relations success

As quick-witted as many people are, AI can generally process requests, analyze data, and respond faster than humans ever could.

I mean, think about it this way: I can do long division, but that doesn’t mean a calculator won’t help me get the answer faster.

Take our tips and advice above and start using AI in public relations with the same mindset.

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