Can you remember life without memes? No, us neither. And why would you want to? Memes have become such an inescapable part of our online experience, creating an entire world of digital culture and a modern visual language.
According to Instagram, at least one million posts mentioning "meme" were shared every day in 2020. Yeah, you read that right. One. Million. Every. Day.
Memes are particularly popular with Millennials and Gen-Zers. According to YPulse’s social media behaviour survey, 75% of 13-36-year-olds (and 79% of 13-17-year-olds) share memes.
But memes aren’t just for fun, they can also be an effective marketing tool. In fact, according to a study conducted by NYU, over 60% of people say they would be more likely to buy from a company that uses memes in their marketing.
So, whether you’re an expert or a novice to the meme making game, here are seven of the best meme makers to choose from.
Mematic - The Best Meme Maker for Quick Memes with Simple Styles
The main advantages of Mematic are a simple user interface, easy sharing option, and a tenor search option but, truth be told, you might find the selection of templates somewhat lacking.
There are two basic designs to pick from: advice animals and demotivationals.
Advice animals are pre-made templates such as the classics Socially Awkward Penguin and Philosoraptor, or more recent ones like the Wat Lady and What Really Grinds My Gears.
Demotivationals have a black background, photo, and text. And… that’s about it. The free option does feature ads, but you can get all the features in the pro option which is billed monthly. Also, occasional bugs can slow down the access.
Imgflip - The Easiest Meme Maker to Use
With ImgFlip, you don’t have to set up an account or download the app but instead you can just use it in the browser of your choice. Even if you’ve never created a meme before, figuring out the process is a cinch.
ImgFlip has perhaps the biggest database of meme templates you’ll find anywhere. It’s fast, has easy customisation, and lets you create GIFs as well. Unfortunately, some users have complained about the toxic negativity in the community, so you might want to just stay out of the comments section altogether.
Canva - The Best Meme Maker for Social Media with Photo Editing Features
Canva is best known as a photo editor and graphic design app but it’s a pretty great meme maker, too! Even better, you don’t need any design background to use it. With its intuitive interface and user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, you can customise your meme with flexible templates and stickers, and without watermarks or font restrictions.
Not to mention how easy it is to share them on different social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
On the downside, Canva automatically saves your designs at a low resolution to make sure they load quickly. So, you’ll have to spring for a pro version if you want to download your design at a higher resolution.
Photo Director - The Best Meme Maker for Photo Editors
Photo Director is a photo enhancement program that was designed specifically for photographers so if you love photo editing, it’s likely to be your meme maker of choice. It’s often considered the favourite among high-quality meme generators due to its performance and versatility.
Available on App Store and Google Play Store, it’s crammed with features, features a sleek interface, offers good video tutorials for newcomers, as well as many advanced effects.
Even better, the app lets you animate your photos with a range of AI-powered effects. On the other hand, some menus are occasionally slow, the app can lag and be glitchy, with some users complaining about it crashing often.
GATM Meme Generator - The Best Meme Maker for Browsing Trending Memes
If you’re searching for a reliable meme app for Android, you could do worse than GATM Meme Generator (GATM stands for Generate All the Memes). This app has been around for a while and it receives fairly regular updates so you can keep updated on all the latest memes, which is not always the case with other meme makers. If you so prefer, you can also upload your own image and create a unique meme.
You can share easily on multiple social media platforms and it appears to be somewhat less glitchy than the other options. The bad news is that the free version contains ads, which you can only get rid of with the $1.95 in-app purchase.
Imgur - The Most Popular Meme Maker
Let’s be for real. When you run into funny images and GIFs online, chances are they came from Imgur. Imgur is a veritable rabbit hole of hilarious media and it features more than half a million posts! It’s easy to get lost on there and spend more time browsing through memes and forgetting to actually make your own.
But making your own meme is ridiculously easy: simply tap on the “Create” button, use your own image or choose from a zillion of existing memes, then just add your text, save and share. The best part is Imgur is completely free and there are no in-app purchases.
Memes are incredibly useful in developing a social media strategy but you can’t only rely on them. Social media videos are now almost as popular as memes thanks to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, and one of the best ways to expand your reach and increase your engagement is through using captions or subtitles.
Captions make video content accessible to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, but they’re also useful to those who are unable or unwilling to listen to audio. And that’s to say nothing of those of us who watch everything with captions.
What? I hate to miss things and sometimes there’s no one around to ask the age-old question “What did they just say?”
Subly is an easy-to-use tool that generates accurate captions and subtitles in a whole range of formats that are compatible with all of the major social media platforms. Subly can also translate your videos into a truly mind-boggling number of languages.
