Developing your own Wechat stickers

Stickers, also known as emoticons, are animated pictures that can be sent in a dialogue when using any messenger. Why do you need to develop your own, when the existing ones are available in abundance?

1. it increases brand awareness and is an integral part of the brand book
2. it will be much better and more customer-oriented to answer a typical question with a jolly and funny sticker than with plain words
3. sets of stickers always have a chance to become viral, and after they scatter on the Internet, absolutely everyone will know about your brand

We started development from a mascot (a fictional cartoon character representing a company). Ours looks something like this

It also, of course, appears as a statue that meets guests at all sorts of events and at the entrance to the office, as small table figures that delight the eye and vitalize the interior, as well as on flyers and business cards, but this is after all a slightly different topic.

It took about a month of work of a 3D-designer, casting, painting. And I’m lost for words when it comes to the delivery price

That is, we first developed the character, and then, remembering most of the working dialogues, we assumed in what situations it would be appropriate to use it instead of responding with text. We got this kind of a list:

Working phrases directly related to the workflow:

1. “product on the way” 运输中
2. “discounts awailable” 有优惠啦
3. “thanks for purchase” 谢谢购物
4. “new product on sale” 新货
5. “product is being processed and checked” 验货中
6. “request in processing” 处理中

Basic phrases, expressing simple emotions, not connected with work or connected indirectly:

1. “you are awesome” 你太棒了
2. “I am thinking” 思考中
3. “I am very angry” 我好生气
4. “I am extremely depressed” 我完蛋了
5. “I will come back soon” 晚点回来
6. “I’m having a rest” 在休息
7. “OK”
8. “sorry to disturb you” 打扰了
9. “confusion” 摊手

Having decided on the situations, you need to draw stickers. Essentially, all stickers are regular GIF animations. Specific file requirements are listed below

Accordingly, as you can see, a set of stickers should consist of 16 or 24 pieces, for each sticker you will need:

1. the sticker itself – a GIF-picture with a size of 240*240 pixels and no more than 500 KB
2. static picture of each sticker – a PNG-picture of 120*120 pixels, no more than 200 KB

And general art for the whole set:

1. cover of the sticker pack - 750*400, 500 KB
2. mini cover of the sticker pack - 240*240, 500 KB
3. micro cover of the sticker pack - 50*50, 100 KB

In the future, you will see where each picture will be displayed.

In addition to technical requirements, there are also censorship requirements. Stickers with pornographic or erotic content, calls for violence and everything else that contradicts the legislation of the PRC will not pass moderation. Direct advertising in the form of mentioning the names of companies or trademarks, using images of real people without their consent, etc. is also prohibited. So on and so forth.

If you already have a sticker pack, you need to register on the very admin panel dedicated to Wechat stickers and create a basic account there. Both accounts of individuals and legal entities are supported.

There is absolutely nothing complicated about this, the only question that you should clarify in advance is whether you want to include sponsorship. The stickers are distributed completely free of charge, but with the included sponsorship, those users who like the set will be able to thank you. But keep in mind that enabling this feature for individuals, in fact, is available only for Chinese citizens, for legal entities – only for those who use Wechat Pay as a seller in industries where the fee is below 0.6%.

After creating an account and passing moderation, you can proceed directly to uploading stickers. Step one is to upload the entire set of both GIF and PNG.

Here you will need to fill in the "Set Name" and "Brief Description" and upload the GIF-file with animation itself (which will be displayed directly in the chat interface) and its static first frame (for preview in the list of stickers). Also, do not forget to fill in 含义词 – up to 4 characters that describe what is happening on the sticker. In the future, for example, when you enter the 含义词 of the third sticker "谢谢购物" (thanks for your purchase) into the chat, Wechat will automatically offer to insert a sticker with the corresponding name, so you will no need to flip through their list. Also choose a background (black or white) and type of stickers (static or dynamic). As well as a big cover picture.

Now then – to the general pictures of the sticker pack

You upload a mini cover, which will be displayed in the sticker store, and a micro cover, which will be displayed in the list of sticker packs already installed on the phone. Now you move on to step four, where you choose the type of sticker pack (cartoon/heroic/pixel art ...), the style of the sticker pack (funny, serious, sad, pretentious ...) plus the main theme of the sticker pack (daily life, work, gaming, sports ...). Submit for review and in 1-2 days enjoy its availability on Wechat.

Statistics (how many people added your sticker pack to themselves, how many times your stickers were sent in total) and much more can be found on the home page of the aforementioned admin panel.