How to April Fool like a pro on Socials this year
April Fool’s Day is such a fun holiday. Play pranks on your family, send memes to your friends - it’s a day to laugh! However, as professionals on social media, it’s important we don’t cross a line from being jovial and fun, to tone deaf or offensive. Here are some tips on how to remain professional online and avoid looking like a fool!
Know Your Audience
Think about if your content is going to resonate with your audience or alienate them. For example, if you own a baby clothing business, you might want to think twice before posting what you think is a funny meme of a baby thinking about how annoying their Mum is. Why? Because your target audience IS that Mum. What one person might find funny, another could find offensive. Goodbye followers and sales. Plus, no one wants to insult their audience!
Double Check What Account You’re Posting From
One of the easiest mistakes to make is posting a rant video meant for your personal, private page to your business one. Especially small businesses, we’re swapping between our accounts all day long. Take that extra five seconds before you post to make sure you’re on the right account. It could save you some embarrassment later!
Pick Your Language
And no, we don’t mean between English and something like French (unless you’re a patisserie company or based in France…then by all means, oui). This comes back to knowing your audience. You want to use words and phrases that your audience understands and relates to. Captions should be easy to consume, no one wants to google the definition of a word or read a paragraph that could’ve been a sentence.
Be Authentic
The best thing a business can do is to be true to their brand. Sure, companies evolve over time and growth can mean tweaking and changing things to suit the trajectory of the business. But at its core, your audience likes what YOU bring to the table, that’s why they’re following you! For small businesses in particular, potential customers love to see a face to the brand - it gives them a sense that they’re actually helping a real person by supporting your business. As Dr. Seuss once said, “there is no one alive who is youer than you” - so don’t sacrifice that individuality in pursuit of instafame!
We love some good April Fools jokes… A couple of our faves over the years has been Boost (the time they threatened to remove Mango Magic from the menu board - don’t do that to us!), Dare Iced Coffee’s collaboration with Vegemite (look… we’d give it a go), and of course Subway’s Coriander cookie (🤮).
There’s definitely a way to do April Fools well, and not so well, so follow these tips and Fool carefully this Friday!
