Content Manager at SocialBee
| This is Chapter 4, Part 1 from the Copywriting for Social Media Guide. |
If you want to learn how to create a funny social media post for your business account, you are in the right place.
Humor is a powerful marketing tool, and it’s a fantastic way to connect with your audience on the internet. But how can you use humor in your content if you have never written a joke before?
The good news is that being funny is both a natural talent and a taught skill, so don’t worry about not being able to create posts that generate a good laugh if you are not the Chandler Bing of your friend group.
Today, we will teach you the best 10 tips that will help you spice up your content marketing strategy and improve your entertainment writing skills.
But first, let’s learn about the benefits of using humor as a brand on social media.
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The Benefits of Funny Social Media Posts
Did you know that 60% of people use social media to find content that offers them some good laughs?
Meaning that if you want to improve your content and increase your reach and engagement levels, you have to start accepting the fact that writing in a fun manner is a necessary skill, no matter how great of a content writer you are.
People gravitate towards funny content because it puts them in a better mood, and it gives them the chance to smile, unwind and relax. At the end of the day, the best posts are those that offer you a good laugh.
A funny content idea doesn’t just benefit your audience, it also helps you:
- Humanize your brand
- Catch and maintain the attention of your readers
- Make your content more memorable
- Gain more likes, comments, and shares
- Improve brand awareness
Top 10 Tips for Creating a Funny Social Media Post
Here are the 10 tips that will help you write funny social media content:
1. Write with your audience in mind
2. Avoid offensive humor
3. Be the main character in your own jokes
4. Use observational humor
5. Keep your jokes short
6. Embrace the impossible
7. Use comparison jokes
8. When in doubt, use memes
9. Include surprise humorous elements
10. Turn clichés into something new
You don’t have to be a comedy writer to come up with jokes. In fact, to create interesting and humorous content, you don’t even have to be a particularly diverting person.
To create hilarious posts for your Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook page, all you need is practice and a sense of humor—which we all have.
So, until you figure out your specific sense of humor, let’s take some time to discover the 10 tips that will help you:
- Exercise your comedic ability
- Come up with funnier content easier than ever before
- Improve your writing skills
1. Design Your Posts with Your Audience in Mind
Humor is very subjective. What makes you laugh may not be funny to your audience, and that’s ok.
Even if you are the funniest person on the planet, you will still not succeed in making everyone laugh. For instance, F.R.I.E.N.D.S. is one of the most (if not the most) popular sitcoms in the world, and it still has its fair share of bad reviews.
So, instead of trying to make everyone laugh, focus on finding out what makes your audience chuckle. After all, the whole point of using humor in your copy is to engage with your specific target market.
For that to happen, you need to really get to understand your audience. This can only happen in one way: test, adjust, repeat.
Let’s take a look at one of the funniest tweets posted by innocent drinks:
Sharing content and paying attention to the reactions you are getting will improve your skills and help you get to know your customers better.
A great advantage of humorous copy on social media is instant feedback. The likes, replies, and shares will let you know if the audience is into it or not.
Don’t be afraid to fail. After all, writing comedy is a skill and even the greatest comedians test their jokes for years before coming up with a finished product. You will be able to generate genius ideas with this trial and error approach.
2. Avoid Offensive Humor
We often see comedians tackle controversial topics. However, we also see them get called out or even canceled once a month.
If you ask us, there is such a thing as bad publicity, and to avoid it, you have to stay away from potentially offensive or controversial jokes or comments, not just to steer clear of trouble, but to avoid insulting or hurting your customers. Respect should be a core value for your internet posting habits.
Monterey Bay Aquarium didn’t get the memo. In their attempt to make a funny tweet, they ended up offending their African American audience by using blaccent (a form of cultural appropriation that imitates the way people of color speak) when writing their posts.
In most cases, using “edgy” or tough humor in your funny tweets will not help you engage with your readers—not even if you are an unconventional brand. Chances are, you’ll end up being perceived as insensitive and lose a part of your audience.
It’s too risky, and this is a sign it’s not worth it. So, keep things clean and be sensitive to race, gender, and culture.
3. Be the Main Character in Your Own Jokes
Speaking of offensive jokes. Here is one way you can’t offend anyone: joke about yourself.
Being able to make fun of yourself publicly is a great way of humanizing your brand.
So, don’t shy away from sharing silly moments and experiences, even if they reveal some not-so-flattering details. After all, that’s what makes you relatable. People want to hear mundane stories. In fact, self-deprecating humor can make you more trustworthy because it shows that you are not afraid to be transparent about your flaws.
According to a study run by Harvard, self-deprecating humor can neutralize negative information and make it seem less important. So, revealing that you are not skilled at something or admitting to making a mistake by using humor, you are able to take away from the seriousness of the situation.
KFC’s FCK campaign is a great example of how using humor can help brands handle crises.
Back in 2018, the KFC ran out of chicken (a pretty big problem when your business name is Kentucky Fried Chicken) which led to multiple of their locations being temporarily shut down. It sounds like a turmoil situation for the brand, doesn’t it?
However, the answer on their Facebook page made things better.
Although it didn’t solve the chicken shortage, it helped the brand gain the sympathy of their customers and neutralize the negative reactions they were getting.
4. Use Observational Humor
Observational humor is used by comedy writers to take ordinary aspects of life and turn them into funny situations by analyzing them from a different point of view. At the end of the day, the best stories can’t be fully invented.
So, if you are thinking that you don’t have enough joke material, start by thinking about the things you have in common with your customers and give them a funny twist by looking at them from a different angle.
Add humor to ordinary situations in your life.
Jerry Seinfeld, a prolific humor writer, is best known for adding observational humor into his comedy writing.
To better understand the concept of observational humor, let’s have a look at one of his jokes:
“The basic problem with TV is everybody you see on TV is doing something better than what you’re doing.
Nobody on TV is just watching TV. You never see anybody on TV half-conscious, sliding off the sofa with potato chip crumbs on their shirt.
Some people on TV are having a little too much fun.
The soda commercial people. Jumping, laughing, hugging. Where does all this enthusiasm come from?
“We have soda! We have soda! We have soda!”
Have you ever been sitting there, drinking the exact same product they’re advertising on TV at that moment? They’re spiking volleyballs, jet skiing, … driving jeeps into the surf, “Sodaaaa!”
I look at it, I think, “Maybe I’m putting too much ice in mine.”
5. Keep Your Jokes Short
Writing humor is about quality, not quantity. This is why some of the best posts are short on words.
You don’t have to create entire posts just to prove that you are funny, you can just add a short joke here and there to make your audience giggle a bit. Think about all those funny tweets and Facebook posts that made you smile with just a couple of words!
As a result, you will keep the readers interested in what you have to say while also providing an enjoyable experience for them.
Here is a great example of a funny tweet from Charmin. It shows how you can squeeze a little humor into your social media posts without making it all about the jokes:
6. Embrace the Impossible
Sometimes, the key to adding humor to your posts is to embrace the impossible and use exaggerated or ridiculous scenarios to make your audience laugh.
Create your own universe where nothing is off-limits, not even an old egg man that gives friendship advice.
7. Use Comparison Jokes in Your Funny Posts
A simple way to come up with funny content is to use comparisons in your copy.
Think about the message you want to convey and come up with a comparison that will help your audience understand your message better while also making them laugh.
Comparisons can also be used to emphasize unusual and funny similarities between two unrelated things.
A great example of this is the following post from Dollar Shave Club:
8. When in Doubt, Use Memes
Do you want to share a funny post but nothing comes to mind?
No problem, there are hundreds of social media memes you can use to cheer up your audience. Just find the ones related to your brand!
To make your own memes, all you have to do is pick a meme template (for this you can use a platform like Imgflip) and think of some random, funny and relatable situations that make sense for your audience.
ASOS is a great example of a business that knows how to use hilarious memes in its social media strategy.
9. Include Surprise Humorous Elements
A simple way to write funnier copy is to use the rule of three.
This concept refers to setting up a logical pattern with the help of the first two elements of your story and then introducing the third surprise element into the mix.
The goal of this practice is to catch the reader off guard in order to evoke a stronger reaction from them.
Netflix uses something similar in the following post, in which they ask their audience to describe their perfect Thanksgiving Day by choosing their favorite type of food, activity, and movie character (the surprise element).
This way, not only did the audience felt heard as they are asked to share stuff about themselves, but Netflix also generated numerous comments that boosted their engagement rate.
10. Turn Clichés Into Something New
Do you want to show your customers that you are different from other brands? Well, we know a way you can do this.
Make a list of all cliché sayings that come to your mind and figure out a way to make them about your brand.
For example, let’s say you have a cooking blog, and you want to make some funny posts to promote it to your social media audience.
By following this particular tip, you could make the following post:
“When life gives you lemons, make a lemon cake. Let’s face it, you are hungry, not thirsty.”
When thinking about funny tweets, another good example comes from Arena Flowers. They managed to turn a love cliché into a trick on how to save money on dates. Smart!
Collaborate with SocialBee’s Witty Content Writers
Are you a small business owner that needs help with their content creation tasks?
Then we have some great news for you. ConciergeBee can help you get in touch with content writers who know how to engage your audience and promote your business on social media. Choose one of ConciergeBee’s Social Media Specialist packages to connect you with skilled content writers.
All you have to do is let our social media specialist know about your vision, values, and objectives in order to provide them with all the information they need to create on-brand content for your business.
By outsourcing your content creation responsibilities, you will be able to save time and focus on more strategic tasks instead of creating social media content. Moreover, you will get to collaborate with professionals without investing tremendous amounts of resources into the recruiting and hiring process.
Share Your Funny Content with the World
Now that you know 10 new top-notch humor writing tips, all that is left for you to do is train your funny bone and test your posts, so you can start creating successfully hilarious writing.
Write your Tweets, Instagram or Facebook posts, test them on your friends and colleagues and share them on social media. After that, monitor the reactions you’re receiving to get a sense of what makes your audience laugh.
To automate the process, you can use social media management tools like SocialBee to create, schedule, and share your funny social media posts and evaluate your performance by keeping an eye on your analytics. With a couple of clicks, you can share your content on your Instagram or Facebook page and many other platforms.
Start your 14-day free trial today and manage your entire social media presence from one place!
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