Is Social Media Audience too sensitive for the humor?

"A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.' This adage explains the importance of humor in all walks of life.  Humor lightens the mind and the soul.  Any problematic situation could be transformed within seconds by humor to secure solutions. Humor is used as an equalizer on social media.  In this mechanical world, it is humor in the social media that people cherish all the time. 

Humor posts on Facebook are the most shared content than any other topics. Out of the total, 3.3 million pieces content shared every minute by FB users most of them are of humor content only.  Also of 400 hours of videos uploaded in YouTube and out of the 4 lakh tweets in Twitter, humor is the main content.  Hence social media is more about fun than other topics.

Engaging audiences with humor is more comfortable than any other content.  But some of the social media audience may be too sensitive to humor. Hence it is important to not cross the line of decency and decorum of personalities and other issues.

Stepping over the line with offensive humor may have its dire consequences.  Hence it is pertinent to be funny but not offensive. 

90 % of peoples' purchasing decisions are driven by emotions only. 71 % o social media users agree that they watch videos for humor only.  Hence the usage of humor in social media marketing is the best way to develop brand values and sales of products. 

Humor helps social media marketing services to market their brands to make them more exciting and funny. The strategy may be severe, lighthearted, wacky, sardonic, inspirational or anything in between the above, it needs at least a little funny moments.  It is because of the following facts:

Enough numbers to support humor in social media marketing:

When humor did right can draw a lot of attention, and there are enough numbers to prove the fact.  Old Spice with its 2.5 million Facebook fans, or Taco Bell with its 10 million Facebook fans is enough proof.  And it is a wonder to watch them interact on Twitter.    The results are mind-boggling in both the quality of the content and quantity of interactions.

Humor helps to stand out in the crowd:

In 2018 Sprout Social Index Report it was found that it is critically important to define the target in the funnel social marketing effort.  It is because social media is no longer an optional marketing channel.  In this fast-paced culture, most of the things are fleeting. Hence leveraging humor will hold the social media users to remember the fleeting things with humor much longer than the initial exchange.  It makes these social media posts stand out of the fleeting content which fades away from the users' memory fast. 

Being funny makes users likable:

Gone are the days of high influencing FOMO or fear of missing out strategies.  And now it is the strange way that people like brand developments more than anything else.

Make the social media users laugh:

Social media users should have a feeling that they are listening to their relative or neighbor during funny jokes or videos and others.  Nowadays they hate lectures, and its place is taken by humor.  Whatever the brand being entertaining could transform a disconnected, corporate image into a familiar-feeling and a humanized one.

Humor breaks the ice:

Today's social media users are intelligent, and they can identify within seconds if they tried to sell product or market brands. But when done funnily it helps to break the ice and reveals the story of the brand effectively so that everyone likes to laugh and brings the human side of the business.  Also, trust can be build when the wall between the brand and social media users to create a candid atmosphere.

Cut the clutter with humor:

Social media users are bombarded with many messages and many others every minute in social media. Hence to cut the clutter and make the users remember the humor content is accessible. It is because funny things are more enjoyable and more comfortable to remember. 

Customize the humor content:

Different types of comedy appeal to different kinds of people.  It could change according to the culture, demographical location, habits and many others.  Hence customizing jokes and funny ads as per the users' choice are critical for the best chances of cracking smiles and generating successful results.

Be funny but not offensive:

Also, humor should be carefully used according to the nature of the brands. In the case of pop events and other joyous occasions can have any amount of humor. But if it comes to pressing world issues of an NGO, caution should be exercised to be not offensive.

As a child's laughter lights a room, laughter is the gift of human beings. Using humorous ways to bring in the laughter of the people will help developing brands and sales more comfortable in social media marketing strategies.