Knock Knock! Who is there? It is FunnelAmplified with some insights on the power of humor as an online prospecting and sales tool. It may sound corny, but, a few good “dad jokes” can go a long way towards reaching your prospects on a social network.
Before we get into talking about the power of humor, we thought we’d share a few of our favorite “dad jokes” to get you in the proper mindset:
10 Dad Jokes To Make Your Audience Laugh
“I’m afraid for the calendar. Its days are numbered.”
“What do you call a factory that makes okay products?” “A satisfactory.”
“My wife is really mad at the fact that I have no sense of direction. So I packed up my stuff and right!”
“Do you wanna box for your leftovers?” “No, but I’ll wrestle you for them.”
“I once got fired from a canned juice company. Apparently, I couldn’t concentrate.”
“Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field.”
“If you see a crime at an Apple Store, does that make you an iWitness?”
“How do lawyers say goodbye? We’ll be suing ya!”
“What’s the best way to watch a fly fishing tournament? Live stream.”
“I could tell a joke about pizza, but it’s a little cheesy.”
And, if you want to learn how to tell “dad jokes” like a master and hear a few more great “dad jokes”, watch this battle between Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg:
Why You Should Use Humor On Social Media
Social media feeds are more crowded than ever. In just one minute on social media, over 500,000 Tweets are sent on Twitter, 50,000 photos are uploaded on Instagram, and 120 professionals join LinkedIn. And, on Facebook, the 32 billion daily active users create over 250,000 status updates and post over 500,000 comments. With that much activity, it is difficult to capture the attention of anyone, even for just one second. Humor can help.
One key to effective social media content is to add value to your audience. While we often think of this as insightful information, humor is also a form of value-added content. And, it stands out. In a social media world full of promotions, provocative news stories, and selfies, humor stands out.
In addition to creating humorous content, humor can be a valuable tool in the social prospecting cadence. If you are prospecting through LinkedIn, you should be interacting with the posts of your prospects. When you look at their posts, you’ll likely see that most comments in reply to the posts are one-word comments, or people sharing their own added insight. There is certainly a time for a brief reply and to share insight, but you’ll stand out from the crowd if you add a bit of humor in your reply.
The Benefits Of Humor
There are other benefits to using humor on social media besides the benefit of grabbing the attention of your prospect. One of those additional benefits is that humor makes you more relatable. This is especially important when your target audience is Millennials or Gen Z, or when you’re interacting with members of those age groups. Quality content is no longer good enough. They need to feel they can relate to you before they’ll give you their attention, let alone buy from you.
Humor has long been used by brands in their social media posts because funny posts get more engagement. People are more likely to click like (or “haha”) on funny posts, they’re more likely to share the post, and they are more likely to tag a friend in the post. This leads to more reach, and ultimately more visibility for the brand. The same is true if you are engaging with prospects as an individual.
One more benefit to humor is that it demonstrates and cultivates authenticity. As humans, we enjoy humor. And, in our normal life, we use humor often. Yet, online, particularly when using social media for business, we are often too serious. That is not normal. That is not authentic. Adding humor to the conversation humanizes it. It also relaxes people and allows them to enjoy the interaction.
The Downside Of Humor
There are potential downsides to humor that you should be aware of before you start dropping one-liners from the latest Chapelle or Seinfeld stand-up special. First, know your target audience. There might be some topics or types of humor that your target audience might be sensitive to that you will want to avoid. Or, there may be things that are funny to you but aren’t to certain generations that you might be targeting. Know your audience, and deliver humor that will make them laugh.
It is also recommended that, when posting something funny, you pause for a moment and read the post or comment over and consider any possible unintended consequences before you hit send. It takes one inappropriate joke to cause substantial damage to a brand or reputation that you’ve built up over the years. If you’re unsure if you should post something, don’t post it.
Humor Sells
If you watch the Super Bowl ads, you’ll notice that the majority of them are funny, and the ones that are the best and stand out the most year after year are the funny commercials. They’re also the commercials that see the most ROI from those very expensive commercial slots.
We buy from people we like, and we like people that are funny. The bottom line is that humor sells. We encourage you to incorporate humor into your brand and personal social media content, and especially into your interactions via replies and comments.
Get started now. Take the “dad joke” from up above that made you laugh the most and post it to your social media. And, if there is a great dad joke that we didn’t include, reply with it here in the comments.
Thanks for reading. I typically write about modern selling, virtual selling, prospecting, sales reps reputation and how content helps all of these with modern buyers. My primary audience includes CEOs, CROs, CMOs, and other executives responsible for increasing bottom line. Post your questions in the comments section below and let’s discuss this!
