In the past year, social media has been a saviour for many - a way for people to keep in touch with loved ones, whilst also providing light relief and entertainment, keeping us smiling when it hasn’t always been easy to! As our report, ‘The Age of Influence’ powered by Global Web Index, has shown, ‘72% of people have claimed to spend more time on social media since the Covid-19 outbreak’. Not only are people spending more time on social media, their content needs have also shifted, as memes and funny content have become the first choice for Millennials and Gen Z.

We concluded from our research that consumers need more uplifting and humorous content, as ‘65% of internet users in the U.S. and the UK approve of brands providing funny/light-hearted videos or content to entertain people during the outbreak.’ Similarly, we have found that a huge '75% of people using TikTok come to the app to be entertained. People with this mindset want to laugh, smile, have their spirits lifted, and not take things too seriously', and this shows the desire for light-hearted, funny and entertaining content. As a result of this, we have seen an overall increase of follower numbers of comedic creators and the desire from brands to push for a wider presence on TikTok.

In this article, we taking a look at which creators have kept us laughing over the past year, and content from our own campaigns that have implemented the comedy element to keep people engaged and moods lifted.

Calling all musical theatre lovers - Austyn Farrell is a professional dancer who out of pure boredom and a need to make use of his wig collection, recreated scenes from famous musicals and pop music videos in his street. These videos got traction not only from his neighbours, but also on Instagram and TikTok, and this helped his following build to nearly 50K on Instagram. As a result of his original content idea, he has been interviewed on prime time television and has raised money for the theatre support fund through his Greatest Showman tribute.

Ex Love Island contestant Chris Taylor has also taken to online comedic content, which has helped him build his 1million Instagram followers. Over the past year, he created inventive and ridiculously funny content with his fellow Love Islander housemates. Notably, Chris took part in our Malibu Holiday campaign whereby creators re-created holiday scenes from the comfort of their homes. This was relatable to many who were keen to get away and therefore gained a lot of traction and engagement for the creators, but also for Malibu as the drink of choice over summer 2020.

Steph Elswood (known as healthychefsteph) has also adapted her content recently from originally focusing on food and fitness to now reaching a new audience through her comedy sketches. We worked with Steph two years in a row (phase 1 and phase 2) as part of our ‘Do You Almond’ campaign, where she created funny sketches with her boyfriend Lewis. This campaign shows how her creativity and dedication to her content has paid off, not only as brands are now desperate to work with her time and time again, but also her following is on the rise thanks to her uplifting and relatable content.

Zoheb Raza, Social Media Director at Isobel who leads on the ‘Do You Almond’ campaigns, comments: “We’ve had great success in utilising humour and working with comedic creators for our Almonds Influencer campaigns. The difficulty is getting the right influencers with the right tone of voice and working with them to craft content that we’re all happy with. The balance of humour vs objective is challenging, but when it works the content is brilliant and as a result, extremely high-performing. Using humour to entertain our target audiences has been a great way to increase awareness of Almonds and the myriad of health benefits they provide.”

Many creators have also risen to stardom through satirical content around recent social and political events, showing particular focus on the Government’s decisions around the pandemic. Harry Trevallyn has seen his audience size shoot up following his comedic video content. A personal favourite is his conversation as Boris Johnson's teenage daughter, which received over 12,500 views and was even shared by James Cordon on Twitter. His way of cleverly making light of current affairs has helped his follower count go through the roof!

Over the past year, it has been imperative for creators and advertisers to understand the mood and feeling of their following; if they want content to relate and have a positive impact, it’s important to stay relevant to what’s going on around them whilst also bringing a positive light. We have seen from these creators and campaigns how social media can be used as a force for good to entertain and put smiles on people’s faces, whilst also having commercial gain for both brands and content creators.

At Influencer, we understand the importance of educating our clients and creators to understand the value of ensuring content is relevant and up to speed with the fast-changing trends and conversations on social media - whether that’s running more campaigns on TikTok or ensuring the content produced provides positivity and light relief. If you want to get in touch with our team to discuss your future influencer marketing campaigns, head over to our website now!