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The Anatomy of an Instagram Meme: How to Create Memes on IG

If you aren’t including memes in your marketing strategy, now is the time to start. Memes are like the political cartoons of social media in 2022. Younger users create memes as relatable snippets of content. They’re a way for people to react to what is going on in the world, drawing on humor to make sense of the chaos. 

Memes are easily shareable and often rely on trending formats, similar to TikTok videos, making them an ideal content format for brands seeking to share on-trend, relatable content without devoting hours to photography and graphic design. Plus, memes are designed to be shared– when users see a good meme, they’re more than likely to pocket that meme for later via the save button. 

Ready to get started? Instagram is the perfect place to create quick, on-brand memes to be shared and adored. Wanna find out how to use Instagram for scrappy meme marketing? This is the post for you.

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How to Implement Memes into Your Marketing Strategy

Because memes are so easy to create, they’re a perfect addition to your content bucket strategy. To recap, content buckets are different social media content topics that help you create and distribute a consistent stream of content that resonates with your audience. Defining content buckets ensures you know what to post whenever your creative well is running low. 

The Instagram Stories editor makes creating memes super quick and easy, but you can also whip them up in Canva to make them the right size for a Feed post. Brands should try out both methods, as a funny, relatable meme in Stories is likely to be shared via DMs and a meme in the Feed might even be shared via DMs and saved for later. 

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How to Make an Instagram Meme in Stories, Step by Step

#1 Find your image

You can go about finding your image in two ways. Either take a commonly named image like Change My Mind, Arthur, or Success Kid and add text relevant to your brand, or freestyle using an original image of your products, employees, or anything else relevant to your brand. 

#2 Upload your image to IG Stories

Add your image just like you would any IG Stories photo. Do this by tapping the plus sign, selecting Story, then pulling up on the screen to open your photo library. Select your photo of choice, and there you have it– a perfect meme canvas. Pinch and drag to adjust the photo so that it fits the screen. While full screen is typically best for IG stories, memes that can be easily cropped to a square can be repurposed as a Feed post. 

#3 Add text

By far, the most popular meme format features text above and/or below the image. Your format of choice will depend on the meme you’re making. If it’s a pre-existing trend, follow the format used with that image. This “two guys on a bus” meme, for example, features text over a black bubble. You can easily mimic this by using the highlighted text feature on Instagram.

To mimic the original meme format on IG Stories, you can either use black text highlighted in white, or you can change the background to white and use simple black text.

To make your meme outside of Instagram Stories, pop open Canva and try their drag and drop meme templates

Scrappy brand memes

Bugles

In this example,  Bugles uses a trendy meme format to show this cutie penguin’s love for their crispy corn chips.

The Beard Club

The Beard Club combined the trendy Baby Yoda meme format with the “me: 3 months later” concept to create this gem.

Epic Reads

Here, Epic Reads shows love for two amazing books in a classic Michael Scott number. 

Chipotle

This absolute masterpiece is a great example of memes made using text and stickers on Instagram Stories. It plays on the fact that guac is extra– which annoys most customers at the register but makes them giggle on Instagram.

Ready to start making masterful memes of your own? Check out our Meme workshop to learn exactly how to incorporate memes into your content strategy.

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Payton Rodewald

Payton Rodewald is the Social Media Coordinator at PLANOLY. She is the in-house Pinterest and vibey content expert.

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What's in a meme? That is the question. We're sharing ways to make memorable memes for your social media that will have your audience craving for more.

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