Not everyone speaks English, Mandarin, or Spanish, but everyone speaks meme. In other words - you, as a business, need to find a good meme generator and use it as one of your social media marketing tools.
But, it’s not just about being trendy. Memes can be an excellent booster to generate better social media engagement.
So, how exactly do you hone your meme crafting skills and use them to build some serious online clout for yourself? Here are some tips. If you haven’t noticed, memes are our love language, which qualifies us as experts!
How Can I Create My Own Meme?
Memes usually start with a funny idea, and they usually express some sentiment or reaction.
The next step would be to find the right picture to be the vehicle for your idea.
Most popular memes are based on popular culture - be it screenshots from a popular TV show, a pic of Leonardo DiCaprio raising his glass or a lady trying to do all that math in her head. You know the one! No, we’re not putting it here. You know it.
Or, alternatively, just use a picture of a cat. Trust us, somewhere on the internet there is the exact right cat picture for literally any idea, emotion or mood.
Once you have your pic, use your words to make your idea as funny as possible. Then, all that’s left to do is to put the two together and create your meme.
Let’s talk about humour for a bit. You’re hilarious? Great! However…would you use it for your brand?
Our best friends share our sense of humour. That eliminates them as voices of reason. If you’re making memes for a business, it’s not about your own sense of humour - it’s about the brand voice.
Wendy’s can pull off some pretty strong stuff, but is your business like that?
If you don’t have a tone and voice guide, at least get a list of things that are a go and a list of things that are a no-go when it comes to jokes.
What Is the Best Meme Maker?
There are plenty of online tools that you can use to create your memes.
One of the most popular ones is Imgflip. This is our meme generator of choice when it comes to making memes in a browser. Imgflip is great because it’s incredibly fast and easy to use.
All you need to do is upload a picture and add text. If you’re not so sure about which picture to use, they have a pretty neat library of popular meme images, so if you’re looking to personalise something that’s already going around, chances are you’ll find it there.
Another awesome feature of Imgflip is that they suggest text placement for you, so you already have a general idea of the meme format when you look at the picture.
What Font Is Used for Memes?
Have you noticed how the split second you see a picture before you’ve even registered what it says, your brain instantly identifies it as a meme?
That’s because most memes use the same font. Or, if we’re going to use the correct technical term - the same typeface.
The font or typeface that is used for memes is called Impact. So if you’ve tried making a meme but it feels like something is missing - maybe you just haven’t used the right font.
Which App Can I Use to Create Memes?
If you’d rather download a meme generator app on your phone, and make your memes that way, that’s cool too!
If you are looking for the most straightforward possible experience, try out Meme Generator. It has a huge library of templates - over two thousand of them, and is extremely easy to use. It also has the option of making GIF memes, which can be even funnier than regular ones. You can use it on both Android and iOS.
If, on the other hand, you want a bit more creative freedom, you can turn to the good old reliable Canva.
Canva has some meme templates as well, but it's real worth is if you want to go beyond templates and use its photo editing tool, and a whole wealth of stickers and fonts to make your memes for social media.
How to Make a Good Meme?
Making memes is not exactly rocket science, but still, there are a few rules that will make sure your memes always succeed.
At this moment in time, there’s a trending meme “She’s a 10, but” The idea is to add something disappointing that could ruin your impression of the most attractive person you’ve met. (Pro tip - NEVER explain memes like this. Ever.) Let’s use that to illustrate what makes a good meme.
Keep It Topical
There’s nothing else that will sink your reputation online quite like using stale jokes. Believe it or not, there are trends when it comes to memes, just like everything else. If you want to sit at the cool kids table, do not use memes from five years ago.
“She’s a 10” is a trending meme at this moment, but by the time this article goes live - it may already be over.
Keep It Funny
The point of a meme is to make someone laugh instantly. A meme is supposed to be relatively easy to understand and punchy. You want to capture people’s attention immediately - they’re not supposed to rack their brains trying to figure out what you wanted to say.
And you don’t have to think of some outlandish jokes either - just observe the things you come into contact with daily, and look at them through a funny lens. Then say what you notice in a witty, pithy way. Make it clear and relatable.
Keep It Relevant to You
If you are posting memes, they should be relevant to your account, be it your personal or business account. For instance, if you run a small business that makes and sells bee and honey products, don’t post memes about football. If you’re a subtitling tool, don’t be afraid to cast some shade on dubbing.
Social media, be it personal or business, is about building a brand, and you can’t build a brand with incoherent, scattered content.
Social Media Strategy Beyond Memes
Memes are great, but you can’t rely solely on them to carve your online presence. If you’re looking to build an audience fast, try a sprinkling of social media videos along with your memes. With the domination of platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, videos are the type of content that is most likely to attract an audience.
In 2021, over 3 billion people watched video content online at least once per month. That’s almost half of the world's population.
Your videos might not reach all three billion of those people, but you can make sure to maximise your reach by creating compelling video content and using a tool like Subly to create subtitles for your videos, both in the original language and translated into other world languages of your choice.
