Newsjacking was the probably first big social media marketing trend which enabled you to potentially boost your brand awareness and reach by tapping into trends, but also required very careful planning, with many brands slipping up by either not understanding the trend before jumping in or tacking unrelated, poor taste, or simply uninteresting messages onto a trend in the hopes of getting attention.

It's a delicate balance - you can either jump into a rising discussion and become a marketing hero, or fail miserably, maybe even harming your brand reputation. 

A similar trend is now emerging with memes, one of the most popular forms of social sharing, which an increasing number of brands are also trying to tap into to boost appeal and engagement. And like newsjacking, it can work - you can get onto a meme trend and generate a heap of reach and exposure for your brand. Or you can fail (before considering your options on this front, I strongly urge you to check out the r/FellowKids subreddit where users share a range of fails).

To help you understand the opportunities and challenges of memes even better, as well as providing a history lesson on the rise of memes more broadly, the team at Filmora have created the below infographic.