When communicating on WhatsApp, using stickers can help us express emotion and personal style, with an impact comparable to text. With the ability to create stickers directly within WhatsApp, everyone can easily convert photos or videos into unique stickers. This article will delve into the types of WhatsApp stickers, creation methods, and their potential for business applications.
What is WhatsApp Sticker?
WhatsApp Sticker is a communication medium with rich visual effects, used to express emotions that are difficult to convey with text alone. It is primarily divided into two categories:
- Static Stickers: These are image-based, typically in PNG or WebP format, used for simple expressions or designs.
- Animated Stickers: These are based on videos or GIFs, capable of continuous motion, and are more lively and helpful for conveying complex emotions or exaggerated reactions.
How to Create Your Own WhatsApp Stickers
You can easily build your own exclusive sticker collection through three methods:
Method 1: The Built-in WhatsApp Feature
This is currently the most convenient way to create your own stickers. Using WhatsApp’s built-in editing tools, you can directly crop photos, remove backgrounds, add text, or even draw doodles, and save them as stickers instantly without any third-party software.
On WhatsApp Desktop: In a chat, click the “+” in the bottom left, select “New Sticker,” and choose an image from your computer. You can then edit it, adding text, emojis, and shapes.
On WhatsApp Mobile App: In a chat, tap the sticker icon at the bottom, then “Create,” select a photo to turn into a sticker, add text and emojis, and tap “Send” when finished.
Method 2: Omnichat WhatsApp Sticker Pack
Omnichat WhatsApp Sticker Pack allows you to send custom stickers to your customers, adding personality and visual flair to your conversations. This feature requires the purchase of the Stickers add-on for your WhatsApp Business API account connected to Omnichat.
- Navigate to Advanced Automation > WhatsApp Sticker Pack.
- Click “+ WhatsApp Sticker Pack” on the top right to begin adding your sticker pack.
- Start naming your sticker pack and begin uploading the images for your sticker pack.
- Once you have uploaded all your stickers, click “Create when finished.
Method 3: Assistance from Third-Party Tools
If you want to create complex animated stickers or manage several large sticker packs, you can use specialised third-party apps, such as WhatSticker or Sticker Maker. These tools often provide more detailed editing options and format conversion functions, but once created, the stickers need to be manually imported into WhatsApp.
Benefits of WhatsApp Stickers
WhatsApp stickers are not only fun embellishments in communication but also practical tools. They bring warmth to personal conversations, allowing users to express emotions and personality directly, and provide businesses with powerful tools to strengthen brand connections and optimise the conversational experience.
Enhance Emotional Expression
WhatsApp stickers are the most direct way to express emotion and personal style. A well-designed sticker can often be worth a thousand words, making conversations more human and warm. It also allows for the quick transmission of complex instructions or feelings, saving time from typing.
Strengthen Brand Impression
For businesses, designing an exclusive set of brand stickers (e.g., company mascots or slogan logos) allows the brand’s visual identity to seamlessly integrate into customers’ daily conversations. When users share these stickers, the brand gets continuous exposure in a non-intrusive way, effectively boosting brand recall and affinity.
Low Cost, High Virality
Stickers have immense viral marketing potential, transforming into a low-cost, high-impact word-of-mouth marketing model. For example, a business can design a sticker with a holiday promotion theme. When customers share these stickers with friends, they are indirectly promoting the brand. This user-initiated spread is more trusted and influential than traditional advertising, bringing a large amount of free exposure to the brand.
Business Applications of WhatsApp Sticker with WhatsApp Business API
In recent years, it has become a habit for many people to send holiday stickers on WhatsApp to express well wishes. Seeing this, brands have launched their own WhatsApp sticker sets, which, when combined with the WhatsApp Business API, can achieve maximum brand promotion effectiveness during festive seasons.
Sending WhatsApp Stickers through WhatsApp Broadcast
With a WhatsApp message open rate of up to 98% (compared to a typical 20% for SMS and email), sending a single WhatsApp Broadcast message to a large number of targeted customers through Omnichat makes it easier to stand out from other brands. These fun and personalised stickers have viral potential. When customers share a brand’s stickers with friends, it brings free promotion for the brand, effectively saving on additional advertising costs.
To further enhance its brand image and customer engagement, Wellcome used a WhatsApp Broadcast to send a WhatsApp Sticker to customers for an early Chinese New Year greeting. By clicking a link, customers could download the festive stickers to share with others, which in turn became free promotion for the brand.
Hong Kong Life offers branded WhatsApp Stickers for free download and leverages them for ongoing promotion. They sent a WhatsApp Broadcast message for World Environment Day, allowing users to click a button and instantly download the animated, logo-embedded “Love the Earth” sticker. This strategy transforms user downloads and shares into highly valuable first-party data and contact information, effectively building a robust prospect database through viral WhatsApp interaction.
Using WhatsApp Stickers in a Chatbot
Businesses can combine a chatbot with WhatsApp stickers for a more human-like customer interaction. Businesses can pre-set stickers as part of the chatbot’s replies. For example, when a customer inquires about a product, the chatbot can send a “processing your request” or “thank you for your inquiry” sticker along with the text message, making the communication more dynamic. This innovative interaction not only deepens brand impression but also enhances the customer’s conversational experience.
Triggering WhatsApp Stickers with Keyword Auto-Reply
Businesses can also combine keyword auto-reply with WhatsApp stickers. Brands simply need to set a specific keyword as a trigger. When a customer enters that keyword, the system will automatically send a pre-set sticker as a reply, which is especially useful during holiday periods. For example, when a customer enters the name of a holiday, a festive sticker can be sent as an auto-reply. This vivid visual content deepens the brand’s impression and makes automated customer service more approachable.
Benefit Cosmetics also previously launched brand stickers for Chinese New Year. Users could simply scan a QR code or enter the keyword “CNY” to automatically receive festive stickers from Benefit. This also allowed Benefit to obtain the customer’s WhatsApp contact for future remarketing campaigns.
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