How do you use humor to boost your social media engagement?

Humor is good. Finding reason to laugh is good for your health. I’d quote a study but I don’t have one. On this platform, however, you just need to ensure that your humor is “professional” and will resonate with your audience. As a lawyer, it’s not difficult. We are not yet a protected category and frequently the buttocks of many jokes. Infotainment is the best. Entertain while you educate.

Understanding your audience is extremely important. There are jokes and references that I can use in a 90s Hip-Hop community that won’t go over the same in a Caretakers Support Group. In either community, understanding who you are communicating with and the group culture will be your guiding star for posting humorous content.

I’d say, know your audience and also know yourself. Is your brand funny? Is your brand serious? Not sure I’d want a brain surgeon to be funny. Plus, humor is not always a global thing. What works here in New York might not elsewhere.

Want to see an example of a brand that nails it? Check out Frontier Airlines on TikTok (@flyfrontier). If you know Frontier Airlines, you know it's a budget airline that's dreaded by most flyers, but exceptionally cheap. Complaints and jokes about the no-frills flying experience are already all over social media, so rather than trying to re-position themselves, they've embraced it with hilarious humor. They capitalize on comedic trends while making themselves the butt of the joke as an airline that is hated but cheap. A fantastic example of knowing their audience's perceptions and turning negative brand associations into a positive with humor.

Being Authentic and True to who you are is so important to engaging with an audience. You don’t want to seem like a person who has it all together because honestly none of us do and that’s ok. Showing our flaws and being able to poke fun at ourselves a little is a very human trait to connect with. In this world of ever growing technology people still want to feel they can connect to real people who are just like them

THIS! Don't try to force humor that doesn't fit your personality. It will show. I do however disagree with the idea that you cannot switch from being serious to being funny. If I am being authentic, there are times and types of content that I am more serious versus the posts where I want to use humor to communicate a point. Do what feels natural to you and how you would be off of social media.

Using humor on social media should feel like being yourself. Don't copy others or try to force jokes that don't match your personality or message. Make sure your humor fits naturally with your brand – it's not just a trick. Also, don't change from serious to funny suddenly without a good reason. People should know and understand your brand's style, whether it's funny, clever, or playful. Staying true to your real self and being consistent in your style will help your social media shine!

You can still talk about business and make it personal, in fact adding your personality will help boost your posts - because you're being your authentic self. People buy from people, don't pretend to be someone you aren't. Share the downsides as well as the good, make your content relatable by being honest. And you can talk about business and sales posts, but inject your personality into them, no one likes a cold post.

I believe authenticity is key in humor. As a teenager, I used to read Bob Orben joke books but many of the jokes did not fit my style. As I matured over the years, so did my own style. I totally agree with not forcing a joke that does not fit your own style. Such a joke will fall flat flat flat. Notice what makes you laugh during the day, and notice what stories you tell that result in laughs from others. You will find your own humor voice.

There's a habit in social media of jumping on trends because they're a flash in the pan, including jokes and memes. But to keep your humor relevant, try to align it with pain points that resonate with your audience. To take it a step further, use your humor as a way to catch the attention of your audience and then provide tips or insights to help them address their pains. Humor should be your entry point to meaningful conversations, not your stopping point!

I'm not a naturally funny person, but I've experimented with infusing humor into my content through the use of GIfs. I take time to search for specific ones that match my brand and add the energy I'm trying to convey with my post. If I can't find one that is ideal, I create my own. Not a lot of LinkedIn content creators use GIFs, so my posts with them tend to perform well. The visual becomes a scroll stopper, this pulls people into my post. My captions are usually provocative in some way.

An example I've seen is the way the good folks at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation run their social media. They experiment every day with ideas from a multi-generational staff who love to throw concepts at the wall and see what sticks. They don't always post these ideas, sometimes they like to let them marinate a bit. They'll sometimes have a Tweet in draft for a year before they find a particularly funny way to use it. This can help relieve the pressure to constantly find something new or relevant in the moment. Combine that with a social media coordinator who has more than a finger on the Internet zeitgeist, and you have a great recipe for consistently good humor.

Creating funny and relevant content can be quite the challenge, especially considering all the factors at play—ensuring it resonates with your target audience, aligns with the platform's vibe, and adheres to all those brand requirements, not to mention the legal hoops it needs to jump through. It can be really tricky, but what has truly made a difference for me is the habit of testing and keeping a close eye on the results. It's really important to track engagement metrics to understand the overall sentiment, but also gather insights into audience demographics and behavior. This analytical approach really helps understanding what works and what needs tweaking to make the content truly effective.

I agree that you have to experiment and test. This involves taking some risks. In creating ventriloquism videos for social media, I sometimes google the national calendar day for that day and make a post referring to that. For instance, yesterday was International Juggler's Day and I used a puppet who supposedly juggled with one hand. In the post I included text asking what are you juggling in your life? What balls are you dropping? In this instance I coupled visual humor with a brief message.

Understanding your audience, and who you are trying to reach with your humor is going to be a really big element here. Depending on your niche and who you are trying to reach, there are cultural expressions, colloquialisms, and humor that can support a stand out social campaign. The key here is ensuring that your brand voice aligns with the audience you are trying to reach, and that you understand the demographic of people you are communicating with. Humor is entirely subjective, but can be very much understood by breaking down elements of demographics, such as race, age, and other areas of orientation.

I totally agree that humor should not only boost the mood of your audience, but yours too. Humor is indeed a gift to yourself as well as to your audience. There is a sense of satisfaction in content creation when you find your own content to be funny.

The more you enjoy the content creation process, the more this will feature in your content and leave your audience engaged and inspired. Swap Monday morning 8am content brainstorms for Tuesday afternoon walks. This way you'll be more creative, have more fun in the process and deliver content that is impactful and engaging.

Humor is a release of tension, plain and simple. In stand up comedy, we pull back the arrow, setting up the joke, and with the punchline that arrow sails and all the tension is released. That's what the laughter is. So it makes sense that we should - as the ones deploying the humor - be relieved and relaxed as our arrow flies and hits its target.

It's important to remember that humor is not something most people are just naturally good at--and that's okay. While some people are naturally funny,it's also a skill that can be learned like any other. But like other more traditional skills, it takes time, effort, and experience to develop. Employers should also recognize it as a skill and not just something that anyone can do...or should do.