Why Memes Are the Real Marketing Superpower | Bathroom Break #65 🚽

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Marketing Millennials - "Why Memes Are the Real Marketing Superpower | Bathroom Break #65 🚽"

Release Date: July 21, 2025

Hosts:

• Daniel Murray - Host of The Marketing Millennials
• Jay Schwedelson - Host of Do This, Not That podcast

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1. Introduction to "Bathroom Break" Series

In this episode, Daniel Murray from The Marketing Millennials teams up with Jay Schwedelson from Do This, Not That for a special collaboration titled "Bathroom Break." This series is designed to deliver quick, actionable marketing tips in a concise format, perfect for those brief moments when you're taking a break or multitasking.

Daniel Murray kicks off the conversation with a playful introduction:

“Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.” (00:02)

Jay Schwedelson adds:

“This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwedelson from the Do This Not That podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing topics.” (00:14)

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2. Light-Hearted Banter: Condiments Conversation

Before diving into the main topic, Daniel and Jay engage in a light-hearted discussion about condiments, showcasing their personalities and rapport.

Jay shares his experience:

“I used to live in New York when I moved down to Florida. I was 15 years old. One of the first things I did was I went to McDonald's. I was hungry and I got a burger and I almost threw up. Because in Florida, they put mustard and ketchup on your burger just automatically. But in New York, they only do ketchup. And I thought that was actually the most disgusting thing I've ever encountered in my life.” (00:57)

Daniel responds with his preferences:

“I am a. I. I'll add one thing. I don't know if you. I'm a big mayo guy. Mayo on a burger. A mayo on anything.” (00:57)

This segment not only adds humor but also sets a relaxed tone for the episode.

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3. The Power of Memes in Modern Marketing

Transitioning from casual conversation, the hosts delve into the core subject: memes as a formidable tool in contemporary marketing strategies.

Jay Schwedelson emphasizes the misconception brands have about using memes:

“Whether you're a business brand in a boring, conservative industry, we can't use memes. Wrong. Consumer brands absolutely should be using memes. Memes are critical now to have in your toolkit.” (02:34)

He introduces Daniel as the "king of memes," highlighting his success in leveraging memes for a substantial media presence.

a. Memes as the Language of the Internet

Daniel Murray elaborates on why memes are indispensable:

“It is the language of the Internet. If you look at your DMs on Instagram right now or what your friends have sent you, it's not ebooks, it's not white papers, it's not long posts. It's usually a meme or some sort of video format that someone's sending you.” (02:34)

He underscores the ubiquity of memes in everyday digital communication, making them a natural medium for brands to engage audiences.

b. Enhancing Brand Engagement Through Memes

Daniel explains how memes can amplify brand messaging:

“Memes get shared with people. And if you want to spread the word, memes is a good way to do it.” (02:34)

He highlights that memes not only increase visibility but also demonstrate a brand's understanding of its audience's preferences and cultural nuances.

c. Strategies for Integrating Memes into Marketing

The conversation shifts to practical approaches for brands to incorporate memes effectively:

• Aligning with Brand Voice: Daniel advises brands to ensure that memes fit their identity:

  “It all starts with, like, what's your brand? What's your voice? Like, how you, how you feel. If you're not, like, don't want to add any fun to your brand then, or any humor, then it's fine.” (02:34)

• Creative Customization: To avoid copyright issues, brands can:

  • Use trending images with their own twist, such as featuring employees.
  • Create original meme formats or cartoon characters.
  • Utilize non-copyrighted images to maintain originality.

• Ad Format Advantages: Memes are highly visible in social media feeds, making them excellent for capturing attention:

  “Memes are really good, great ad format for businesses because they get seen in the feed. People recognize it. So it's a really good way to like, say things.” (02:34)

d. Static vs. Video Memes: Choosing the Right Format

Jay inquires about the evolving formats of memes:

“What has been changes to memes? I see you post a lot of video memes now and not just static image memes. Is that what everyone should be doing or we? Or is there another format?” (05:16)

Daniel responds by explaining the importance of platform-specific strategies:

“It depends what platform you're on too, like Instagram, like if you're trying to get net new follower growth or seen by net new followers, video memes are very good at like getting served too because a lot of people are watching reels versus scrolling feed and seeing static.” (05:53)

He further differentiates the effectiveness of static and video memes:

• Static Memes: Offer predictability in likes and shares.
• Video Memes: Possess higher potential for virality and broader reach.

e. Navigating Social Media Algorithms

Understanding platform algorithms is crucial for meme success:

Daniel sheds light on common pitfalls:

“If you add watermarks to something, it's going to get deducted in the feed... if you repost the same meme on the same day or same post in the same day, it's going to get deducted.” (07:04)

He stresses the importance of adhering to each platform's unique rules to maximize meme performance.

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4. Best Practices for Meme Reuse and Adaptation

Jay shares effective techniques for recycling successful meme content:

“If you have a meme that crushed it six months ago, you want to resize that image. You don't want to take the image, download it, repost it again, because they won't like that. You take the image, resize it a little bit different, make it a little bit different, and then post it, and then it should take off.” (09:34)

This approach ensures content remains fresh and complies with platform guidelines, preventing algorithmic penalties.

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5. Final Thoughts and Community Engagement

As the episode wraps up, Daniel and Jay circle back to lighter topics, briefly discussing their favorite fast-food sauces, maintaining the episode's friendly and relatable atmosphere.

Daniel concludes with a call to action:

“It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out and it could be anything from email subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.” (10:53)

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Key Takeaways:

• Memes are Integral to Modern Marketing: Serving as the internet's universal language, memes offer brands a dynamic way to engage and resonate with their audience.

• Customization is Crucial: Brands should tailor memes to align with their voice and avoid copyright issues by creating original content or modifying existing formats.

• Platform-Specific Strategies Enhance Effectiveness: Understanding and leveraging the strengths of each social media platform, whether through static or video memes, can significantly boost reach and engagement.

• Algorithm Awareness Prevents Content Penalties: Adhering to platform-specific rules, such as avoiding watermarks and preventing repetitive posts, ensures optimal content performance.

• Repurposing Content Maintains Freshness: Slight modifications to previously successful memes can reinvigorate content strategies without risking algorithmic downgrades.

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Join the Conversation

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Follow Daniel Murray on Twitter: @Dmurr68

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend and join the ongoing discussion on utilizing memes to elevate your marketing game.

Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

[Jay Schwedelson]

This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwedelson from the do this not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine. Just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.

[Daniel Murray]

We are back with another Bathroom Break. I'm here with the Jay Schweitzen of Do this not that Podcast, the number one podcast. So go check it out. I am Daniel Murray. I want to start off this podcast because I. I've been thinking about this, and I don't know what. Where you say, like, on condiments, like, are you a condiments guy? A sauce? Like, what do you have, like, any condiments that you love or hate?

[Jay Schwedelson]

Well, it's funny question. Funny you bring that up when. So I used to live in New York when I moved down to Florida. Like, I was. I was 15 years old. So one of the first things I did was I went to McDonald's. I was hungry and I got a burger and I almost threw up. Because in Florida, they put mustard and ketchup on your burger just automatically. But in New York, they only do ketchup. And I thought that was actually the most disgusting thing I've ever encountered in my life. Are you a mustard and ketchup on a burger? Because you are. We're stopping the podcast immediately.

[Daniel Murray]

I am a. I. I'll add one thing. I don't know if you. I'm a big mayo guy. Mayo on a burger. A mayo on anything.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Not real mayo. Now you use fake mayo, right? Like avocado mayo or whatever.

[Daniel Murray]

Mayo, but mustard. I'm on a. I'm not a big mustard on a hot dog. A hot dog's fine. Yeah, I haven't had a hot dog.

[Jay Schwedelson]

In, like, a while.

[Daniel Murray]

And I'm not a big, like, Gray Poupon guy. I know, like, a lot of people. Like, who.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Who do you know that likes Gray Poupon? Who even says that? Hey, Daniel, what's up? I like Gray Poupon. No one's ever said that. Oh, my God. What are we talking about? Well, I know we are going to talk about. We're going to talk about memes. We just lost half the audience. Like, I'm not listening to an episode about memes, but let me tell you why we are. Whether you're a business brand and you're a boring, conservative industry, we can't use memes. Wrong. Consumer brand absolutely should be using memes. Memes are critical now to have in your toolkit. I am talking to the king of memes right now. Daniel has built a gigantic media business and he's fueled it a lot with memes. I'm talking to the right guy. So, Daniel, what is your take on memes?

[Daniel Murray]

Firstly, I'll say this. It is the language of the Internet. If you look at your DMs on Instagram right now or what your friends have sent you, it's not ebooks, it's not white papers, it's not long posts. It's usually a meme or a some sort of video format that someone's sending you. So, like, part of the Internet is that memes get shared with people. And if you want to spread the word, memes is a good way to do it. So, big fan of memes. Do I think everybody should do it? I think it all starts with, like, what's your brand? What's your voice? Like, how you, how you feel? If you're not, like, don't want to add any fun to your brand then, or any humor, then it's fine. But I think there's ways to do it that could work on both camps. One way I've seen and I've worked with clients to do this is that, like, if you're scared of like, copyright or you're scared about using like, trending, like imagery is you could take like, trending images and put like, your employees in there. You can put pictures of like, pictures of off the Internet of it that are not copyrighted. You can have, you can make your own cartoon character for this. So, like, you can make memes in a format that, that work for you. Also that people sleep on me. Memes are really good, great ad format for businesses because they get seen in the feed. People recognize it. So it's a really good way to like, say things. And one thing I'll also say why memes are really great is it shows you understand your audience. Like, if you like, if you can take a, a pain point and connected with an image, it's just a way to show like, you understand your audience at a deeper level and you want people to say that. So me. So when I create a meme, I try to reverse engineer the comment section or the dm so what I mean by that is like what do I want them to say at the comment section? Like I do they want, do I want them to say this is hilarious. Do I want to say that? So me like, do I want to say, like I feel this. Do I want to them to say, like how are you getting in my mind? Like this is like you want to like when you're creating a meme, have some sort of reaction. So I try to switch up like what reaction I want. But the way I know, I know you asked this before, like the way I know things are going to work is like I see if you have five or six pain points and one liners and hooks that you know are going to work and you just match them with different images, usually they will, they will hit with an audience.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah. And I think it's so important for whatever your brand is, business or consumer, that you have to mix up your formats. You can't just go, okay, we have this carousel did really well. Non meme obviously carousel. Let's keep posting that carousel format because that's when it becomes wallpaper. And so it's not like, oh, this is off brand. We can't use memes. That's ridiculous. Memes to Daniel's point are the language of the Internet. So I'm curious about something though. What has been changes to memes? I see you post a lot of video memes now and not just static image memes. Is that, is that what everyone should be doing or we. Or is there another format?

[Daniel Murray]

No, I think like you said a second ago, I think it's changing up the format. I think and it depends what platform you're on too, like Instagram, like if you're trying to get net new follower growth or seen by net new followers, video memes are very good at like getting served too because a lot of people are watching reels versus scrolling feed and seeing static. I think Instagram and LinkedIn are very like really reward carousel. So like if you can have swipe through of different like pain points, that's a good format too. I think I always say it's like what when you're doing something like this, what is your capabilities of like doing it? If you, if you're really good at doing video stuff, like do video. If you're really good at static stuff, do static. But yeah, for some, like I've been testing out on video because platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram reward video memes. But I also put in on static memes. Static memes seem to get more predictable likes and shares where video memes have more potential to be seen and go viral than a static.

[Jay Schwedelson]

And if you are out there, you're like, well, I don't know how to figure out what's going to do well or not do well, or you think that you have come up with the world's greatest new template that nobody's seen, that's going to do well. That ain't it. I'll tell you what I do. What we do is we look for images or videos of other memes that have in other industries, totally random, nothing to do with marketing, what I do for a living and that have circulated massively, you know, millions of views, millions, whatever. And then we recaption it because we know that that image hit or that video hit. It's just a matter of now spinning it. For the industry that we're in, it's the easiest thing because people are people. And if people reacted to the image for one reason, they're going to react to the image again, as long as it's for your industry.

[Daniel Murray]

And like when you spin it for your industry, like algorithms are smart now that it's going to serve your audience. So like if you put like your audience, let's say marketers or IT professionals or whatever, it's going to. It will, like, especially in Instagram, it will serve it to the people who care about those things. Because the goal of these platforms are to get people to stay on the platform. Like when people say to me, like, why is this not performing? Or that not performing, it usually is like the idea didn't hit or like the hook didn't hit or the content wasn't that good. It's really like the algorithm is not going to push something that is not working. Like, that's why you got to understand the rules of the game. Like, for example, in Instagram, if you add watermarks to something, it's going to get deducted in the feed and that could be a reason you got deducted. Or if you on LinkedIn, like, if you post, if you take it down and post and you put it back up, it's going to get downgraded in the feed. I don't know if they haven't told me that, but it's seen it multiple times. Like if you repost the same meme in the same day or same post in the same day, it's going to get deducted. So you just got to know the rules in the game when doing these things. It's.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Well, yeah, I would say one Other random rule that I would always think about is, let's say you had a meme that crushed it, you know, six months ago, a year ago, and you want to do it again, which is a great idea. You want to resize that image. You don't want to take the image, download it, repost it again, because they won't like that. You take the image, resize it a little bit different, make it a little bit different, and then post it, and then it should take off. All right, back to the original question about condiments and stuff. So, like, if you hit Taco Bell, which I feel like you probably crushed Taco Bell at least weekly. Are you like, I haven't been there in 10 years. Do you get, like, all the sauce you get, like, I'll tell you.

[Daniel Murray]

I'll tell you something. Actually, Ari's the biggest taco web fan, and I'm the biggest not taco.

[Jay Schwedelson]

I love Taco Bell.

[Daniel Murray]

I like Taco Bell breakfast.

[Jay Schwedelson]

I've never had that.

[Daniel Murray]

It's really good. But I grew up in San Diego, so, like, Mexican food was like, you could choose by, like, the local burrito shop or Taco Bell. Like, we're going local burrito shop.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Look at you. Oh, bougie.

[Daniel Murray]

So I know it actually probably came out cheaper than talk about that, but, yeah, I'm not a Taco Bell fan, but other places, I like, like, Chick Fil? A sauce. I gotta gonna add Chick Fil?

[Jay Schwedelson]

A sauce now. You crush it. Now Taco Bell's not gonna sponsor this podcast. You still. What a fail. All right, but this podcast wasn't a fail. Listen, if you share this on your Instagram story and you tag at J. Schweddelson, which is my horribly long name, or you tag at the marketing Millennials, we will then reshare it to our story, and then we'll just. Everyone just be sharing story. It'll be amazing. How exciting will that be? We appreciate you. We'll see you at the next one. Later. Daniel, come on, man. I got to get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

[Daniel Murray]

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out and it could be anything from email, subject line to any marking tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Later.