Recently, Entrepreneur posted a story on Denny’s and how their “Weirdness Wins the Social Media Game.” This got us thinking, why aren’t more small businesses capitalizing on the quirk factor? The answer is that often they’re worried about being offensive, straying too far from their current formula, or simply putting humor out there that their audience doesn’t “get.” Certainly, all of these are possible outcomes, but when properly timed and executed injecting a little eccentricity into your marketing messages can forge lasting connections with your customers.

Weird Works When:

• It Fits with Your Brand Personality:

  First and foremost, quirky humor is not going to work for your company if it doesn’t match with your brand’s personality. If you’re not “Being You” your customers can tell and it may even dilute the brand personality that you have worked so hard to build. Make sure that the type of humor you choose to use fits with the overall image you’d like to portray of your company. You may find that weirdness doesn’t have a place in your marketing at all, and that’s okay!

• It Meshes With Your Audience’s Humor:

  Just as you have to make sure that the platforms that you choose fit with your audience’s preferences you should ensure that the unique jokes you make or stories so tie into your marketing fit with their brand of humor. For example, if your audience is mostly made up of women you should avoid making a joke that would be more likely to appeal to the male audience.

• It’s Culturally Relevant:

  Pulling from pop culture is a strategy that really works as it shows that you’re company is keeping up with movies, music and television just like you customers. This tactic is what really drives Denny’s social media strategy and makes it so appealing. Just check out their tweet from December of last year following Beyoncé’s surprise album drop. Again though, this will only work if you’re playing on pop culture references that your customers “get.” Denny’s is a well-known hangout for young people who aren’t ready to go home after the bar; their riff on Beyoncé wouldn’t have gone over as well if they catered mostly to the 65+ demographic.

• It’s Clever:

  Keeping your customers on their toes and making them think a bit before they make a connection actually makes them more likely to remember your brand and your message. Absolut Vodka is famous for this in their print campaigns where they create the iconic shape of an Absolut bottle without actually including the bottle, or other obvious imagery like glasses or a bar, in the ads.

• It Matches the Platform:

  As with all of your marketing tactics, the message should match the medium. There are some types of posts that will be wildly popular on Twitter and flop horribly on LinkedIn. Consider the platform that you are posting to before you inject any bizarre humor.

Does your odd idea check off all the criteria above? Then go ahead and put it out there! Be creative and have fun with it. Your customers will thank you for the laugh!