People don’t expect funny tweets from nonprofit brands.

They think serious, solemn communications is all that’s appropriate when our mission is for social good.

But as I wrote a few weeks back, humour should be part of your social media strategy, no mater what you are promoting.

Bold, funny content is everywhere!

It seems like lots of comms pros are getting in touch with their witty side lately.

I keep seeing glorious examples of social media posts that make me smile.

Last Thursday we had our Comedy For Comms Masterclass, so it may be the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon going on – where once you’ve thought about or learned something new, you notice it all the time.

Here are my favourites.

National Trust

You may have been more interested this week in National Trust’s sarcastic response to tweets about claims made in Spectator magazine.

But I also want to highlight this tweet, that is just a classic and funny way to get people engaging with your brand.

Why this works

As we learned during the masterclass last week, a little humour can grab your audience’s attention and help them warm to your brand.

This tweet combines two of the funny formats we learned about:

• Some good old puns
• It lets our audience come up with a punchline too.

You don’t have to be a comedian to make people smile. Branch out, and don’t leave humour to the stand-up comics.

Oldham Council

It’s an easy win, this newsjack.

A radio DJ made announcement, and got a message from the local council that names a gritter after him.

Why this works

Honestly, if your vehicles have fun names, you may as well milk the joke wherever possible.

It’s a nice reminder that the council has fun, real people working for them.

Local government brands can remind people of that enough.

The US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

There is a generous skid mark behind this child on the slide.

Why this works

It certainly gets the point across.

A lot of comedy is about the element of surprise. And none of us expect to see a runny poo on a government gif.

It got my attention, and I have halted all my pool related diarrhea plans.

Now that’s behaviour change.

Yorkshire Tea

OK, Yorkshire Tea aren’t a not-for-profit brand, but they do social good, am I right?!

I think tea and coffee should be at the bottom of the triangle in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

It’s a fun reminder to pop the kettle on for a cup of tea.

Yorkshire Tea show us that we can always find different and creative ways to say the same thing, over and over.

Why this works

As we saw in the comedy masterclass , it can be funny to communicate that the tweets are written by a real team, not keeping up the facade that the content appears by magic from your logo.

It’s weird how so much of what we do pretends that the brand has one mystery voice, like the voice of God or something, and we rarely show ourselves as real people behind the scenes.

A tweet like this lets the audience in, helping us all feel surprise then trust that they revealed who they really are.

Sophisticated. Fun. Now who’s making me that cuppa?

BOOK NOW

If you want to take our special comedy for comms masterclass, you’ll learn why and how to bring humour to your brand’s social media.

It’s just under two hours long, and you can watch it in your own time for £150 +VAT.

Social Media Comms Academy members get this, and all our social media courses for free.