UTILIZING MEME AS DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

How to utilize memes in digital marketing communication strategy (@shopdear) to increase engagement? This question arises because, so far, memes are better known as visual content (consisting of images and writing) and often contain elements of social, political, religious messages, and others. If it departs from the initial observations where the researcher assumes that memes can develop into a communication character through the tone of voice of a brand, the results of this study will also be aimed at answering and describing the relationship between the two. In this study, we implement the post-positivism paradigm. Looking at the objectives and research paradigm, from several variants of the research approach, we use a qualitative approach. The authors uses the case study method to obtain comprehensive results in detail from several sources/subjects involved. If in general, meme marketing is used to produce viral marketing, DEAR uses memes more as a medium of expression and a form of creativity. However, in fact the researcher saw that the concept of this meme became a link between DEAR and an audience who had the same frequency, one taste in acting, thinking, and behaving. Finally, the use of this meme is considered quite successful in the DEAR digital marketing communication strategy on Instagram, especially in the market segmentation of today's Generation Z.