What will go funny viral? It's like a thing

Now that the new HRmarketer.com B2B marketing platform is live, along with SocialEars in limited beta, it's time for us to continue the marketing.

Because, as all of you know quite well, marketing is hard work, even when it seems effortlessly funny.

Yes, hard work. Lots of it. If you attended our social media marketing and digital storytelling webinar with Jessica Miller-Merrell at the end of September, you'll remember I covered comedy.

Comedy can be highly subjective, but there are universals that can be a big viral win -- if you get it right.

"If" being the operative word. I bring this up because we're in the process developing some new viral marketing campaigns for HRmarketer.com, some of which will be funny (we hope).

Hey, after our magically viral marketing success in launching SocialEars, which was highly creative but not really funny per se, it'll be a fun challenge to be funny. By the way, I did nominate our SocialEars campaign for the Mashable Awards Viral Campaign of the Year, so don't forget to vote when the voting starts.

Being funny isn’t as easy as it seems, especially when combining comedy and B2B marketing. It’s hit and miss even in B2C marketing, which by the way you always remember your favorites, but you certainly don’t remember the bombs.

In fact, when attempting to be creative and funny whatever the medium, usually video, most HR B2B vendors don’t do a very good job.

Neither did I back in the day. Yikes.

Because the problem is that we’re trying to hard to explain what we are, what we do, why we want to buy – and oh, buy the way, please laugh at our funny, which isn’t. Here are some tips that might help:

• Good comedy is about getting us to relate about something we can all relate to (in our space). Like aspiring to grow up and work in HR.
• Run the script and/or copy by folks inside and outside of the space. Does it resonate? Crack a smile? Make them cry in pain and not the funny kind of pain?
• If you’re going to make an animated video, for goodness sake spend some money. Those free shareware problems are fun to play with, but they make for poor quality videos. Production is important.
• Whether it’s a live-action video or an animated one, or some combination of both, don’t make it too long. In fact, take your original length and cut it in half. Lighten up and the set up and get to the punchline quickly. 1-3 minutes max.

What will go funny viral? That’s anyone’s guess. It's like a thing.

"They have tables made of doors. It's like a thing."