How to Leverage Memes in Your Stories
Tips for riding the wave
Hi friend,
How are you? I hope you’re having a great day.
Years back, for my mom’s 70th birthday, I created a blog with memorable stories, photos and an alphabetical family dictionary.
Dictionary?
Yep! These are terms or memes - I bet you have them in your family too - that to the outside world won’t mean much, but to your family members, they carry special shared experiences, or private jokes.
One memorable expression that came out of our “family linguistic labs” is - “possibly”.
The “scientific definition” of what this term precisely means is 70% no 30% yes. You use it for requests you don’t feel like doing but still need to accommodate.
Like “Do you want to help wash the dishes?”
Thanks for being here. Want more?
Why do I tell you this?
Memes and catchphrases that carry unique meanings to exclusive groups are great vehicles to plug into your storytelling.
Granted, if they’re aligned with your brand and audience.
In essence, they work like shortcuts and put the storyteller in a favorable mode of being “in-the-know,” and “one of us.”
If you run an early-stage startup, you know this as part of your product market fit.
You must run customer validation for a new product you’re launching.
Among the many research tactics, direct customer interviews offer the most realistic read about what your ideal customer thinks, feels, and does.
Beyond ensuring you created a must-have solution, it’s finding the emerging language pattern (memes included), your customer uses to describe the problem you solve.
Golden intel you can later use in your pitch deck and marketing.
The results are highly relatable stories.
Fresh example
Case in point is Sam Altman’s recent announcement that the new GPT won’t be called 6 but 6-7, which broke the Internet.
6-7?
First, the backstory.
After the backlash around GPT5’s subpar performance that was launched back in August, they needed a new direction.
In a shrewd naming strategy, OpenAI was able to both capture massive attention and come out as appealing to a younger segment that, by now, completely skips search engines and uses AI chatbots for any information task.
It so happens that 6-7 was chosen by Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year for 2025. It was circulated on TikTok by Gen Alphas (those born 2011-2024).
All it means is ‘so-so’ or ‘maybe this, maybe that’, which now you understand why it reminded me of my family’s meme.
Meme Marketing works because it’s timely, relatable, authentic, and opens up your brand for further user engagement with hordes of commenters.
You can find a ton of examples of how brands have used this strategy to reposition their appeal and, at the same time, garner massive attention.
From this perspective, Meme Marketing is no different from Newsjacking - another strategy that capitalizes on hot news with brand-relevant stories.
I covered this in:
Both allow brands to ride the wave of super-popular trends (memes vs. news) to boost their reach and engagement.
Words of caution
Before you launch a meme campaign, always validate that the meanings are aligned with your audience and do not carry any undesirable implications that could later backfire.
Also, evaluate if the chosen meme is within the short time window of usage. The last thing you want to do is wave your flag using an outdated meme.
Pre-launch tests will save you from any future mishaps.
What trendy waves are you riding your stories on?
See you next time!
Best,
- Shlomi
Shlomi Ron
Founder, Visual Storytelling Institute
story > visual > emotion > experience
shlomi@visualstorytell.com
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