How to Add GIFs and Memes to your YouTube Videos

Adding GIFs, memes, and movie clips to your YouTube videos can make them more engaging and entertaining. But how do you do it without violating copyright laws? In this article, I’ll show you how to add these elements to your videos while staying compliant with copyright regulations. Whether you’re a YouTube creator or an online business owner looking to spice up your content, read on to learn how to add GIFs, memes, and movie clips to your videos.

Some product links in this post are affiliate links, and I will be compensated when you purchase by clicking our links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Finding the Right Clips

Adding GIFs and memes to YouTube videos is so much fun. So I want to show you exactly how this works and how I do it. Basically, you find the clips that you wanna use. You download them to your hard drive. YouTube is a great place to start. There are many green screen GIFs and meme compilations available to choose from. You can also search for specific clips from TV shows or movies, but be aware of copyright restrictions.

Downloading the Clip

So once you find GIF or meme that you want to add to your YouTube video, you select the URL and hit copy on your keyboard. Then I use an app on my Mac called 4K Video Downloader. I’m pretty sure this is free to use. Especially if you’re only using it pretty minimally whenever you’re editing your YouTube videos. So all I had to do is hit paste link, and hit download the video. It takes that 56-second long video and download it to my actual hard drive. Then all you have to do is pull that into your video editing project. I use Premiere Pro, so I find that particular file and drag it into my timeline in Premiere Pro.

Removing the Green Screen

If the clip you want to use has a green screen, you’ll need to remove it before adding it to your video. This is easily done using a tool like Premiere Pro. It has an Ultra Key effect that eliminates the green background. Once you’ve removed the green screen, you can scale the clip to the size you want and position it on your timeline.

Adding Sound

Some GIFs come with audio, while others do not. If you want to use a GIF with audio for your YouTube video, you can adjust the volume or mute it altogether. If you want to gradually fade in or out the audio, you can add audio keyframes to achieve the desired effect.

Speeding Up the Process

Adding GIFs, memes, and movie clips to your YouTube videos can be time-consuming. But there are ways to speed up the process. One thing I like to do is to create a project template in Premiere Pro. This template includes reusable elements like lower-third animations and graphics. With everything there in one copy and paste-able project, all I have to do is find what I’m looking for, copy it, and then paste it right into the project that I’m working on. And every video project that I create in Premiere Pro starts from a project template that includes that video template. So the meme files, videos, compilations of memes and GIFS, all that stuff is right there within my project template every time I go to start a new video.

Related: Video Editing for Beginners

Conclusion

By following these simple steps, you can add GIFs, memes, and movie clips to your YouTube videos and make them more engaging for your audience. Remember to always be aware of copyright regulations and consult an attorney if you have any doubts. With a little creativity and some technical know-how, you can take your videos to the next level and attract more viewers and subscribers. And I have lots of great hacks for coming up with video topic ideas that don’t take forever to edit. So you can fill your channel with binge worthy topics. And then every single video that you publish attracts new viewers and subscribers. If you’re not sure how to build a library of binge worthy videos, I have a video to show you how to do that.