Secret ingredient for humorous posts? Why fun posts are important for businesses?

They are the supreme discipline among creative posts on social media: humorous posts, that make us laugh and encourage interactions. Why are specifically those fun posts so important for business pages? And why are they so hard to create? An explanation attempt.

Usually posts by businesses refer to sweepstakes, product novelties or discount campaigns. Whereas fun posts, at first sight, don’t have a specific use such as the sale of a product or the increase of brand recognition. But especially those kind of posts lead to strong customer loyalty and a high engagement rate: Primarily, because we tell our (virtual) friends about these posts or even share them with them. Secondly: These posts stay in our memory, because, in contrast to standard posts, they offer an emotional added value. In a nutshell: We feel entertained by fun posts instead of persuaded. So businesses profit from the increased engagement that fun posts generate, because it leads to an increased (and most of all free) reach.

But especially fun posts require some courage and sometimes also a bit of effort with the planning and implementation: In the beginning, there is the topic identification, since only rarely a genius idea for a post just appears out of nowhere. It can be helpful to find topic areas that are close to the brand, the products or the area of expertise of the business. In addition, current happenings and recurring events can be a good basis: topics, that the target group is familiar with and can relate to. Businesses have to ask themselves: Who are these people that follow us and what would they like?

With current topics the dose of courage mentioned above comes into play: Social media offers a base for many trends and hypes, and as fast as they appear and spread out, as quickly it can all be over again. In this area it is crucial to react in a timely manner and to use the situation for one’s own purposes. Of course it is required to have watched the event in advance and that the trend matches the own brand.

Once a topic is found, the hard part begins: You have to find something, that fans will consider funny or entertaining. One possible approach is connecting something familiar with something new or unexpected and to create comedy this way. An example: With our post series “Employee of the Month” we are not talking about employees in a traditional way but objects (or animalistic colleagues) in our office routine, that we pay homage to with a number of expressions

Of course humor - such as the posts in our newsfeed - is always subjective: What one fan might consider funny, someone else just scrolls over. Over time though, you can develop a feeling for what is perceived well by the community. Here it is crucial to document how one’s own ideas are performing in order to learn from it for the future.

So, if fun posts are linked to this much effort and it isn’t even certain that they will be perceived well - why invest the time and money? Well-done fun posts stand out from the mass of posts that we encounter in our newsfeed on a daily basis. They generate attention which is becoming increasingly important with the daily flood of posts in social media. And they let the sender, who spreads it, shine and appear in a positive light - after all, with a successful fun post we link positive emotions to him.

The latter might even be the most important reason why there should be more fun posts: They entertain or even make us laugh - and that in itself is already beneficial enough, isn’t it?