GIFs have been popular for years now and the influence they hold in today’s world of social media marketing is phenomenal! Created in the 90s, animated GIFs have become their own visual medium and hold their own special place in digital art and marketing. The continuous motion of GIFs holds the viewers’ attention in a unique way that neither video nor photo can achieve.
Now that there are endless resources for GIF creation, with added support on social platforms, GIFs can help brands cut through the clutter of today’s digital landscape.
Want to know the secret to using GIFs to reach your audience more effectively?
- GIFs are what your audience wants to see and relates to. GIFs are entertaining and attractive to users who browse social networks in their leisure time. These images grab your audience’s attention immediately and draw them into stopping and really looking at your content while they scroll through theirfeeds.
- GIFs are extremely communicative! There is such wide variety of purposes for GIFs, as well as types of them! You can do anything from teaching your audience how to do something to making them laugh by sharing the funniest 5 seconds from a movie. That’s why you’ll find GIFs tremendously useful when trying to communicate an
idea or a mood to your audience. - GIFs assist you in building your own style and brand identity! They not only show a sequence of images inmotion but also convey ideas, attitudes, sense of humour, and ways of seeing the world. That’s what makes them stand out and makes them useful when expressing the nature of your brand. The communication that GIFs bring out allows you to show your audience a more authentic, human side!
GIFs, as mentioned earlier, have many uses and benefits, and are ideal for displaying your product. They allow you to show your audience, in just a few seconds, new products, services, and the list goes on!
They also help you showcase
your inventory, new collections, special promotions, and the variety of products or services your business offers its customers. With GIFs, you have the option to get even more creative, as they let you tell stories. Animated GIFs have the ability to tell stories dynamically and concisely. You can pass a great amount of information on to your followers in no time!
You can teach them how to use a product, for example, in just a few frames of moving image! They can also help represent complex ideas, such as maps
and diagrams. And, last but not least, they are such a fun medium that allows you and your followers to engage with laughter and entertainment!
We digital marketers are quite familiar with the many issues when posting an image or video for advertising to Facebook (e.g. the 20% rule). Twitter’s process is much simpler since it natively supports and accepts GIFs and has mostly the same rules as for posting images. Facebook, though it supports GIFs, is quite picky about them and we have limited information regarding GIF support. There is a process of a lot of trial and error but what matters in the end are the eye-catching, engaging results! Once you have familiarised yourself with the process you will see the benefits that using moving images, or GIFs, bring to your social media game.
As a conclusion, it’s a great idea to use GIFs because they are fun, accessible and play well with branding! With good planning and execution, GIFs can make your messages stand out in the competitive visual real estate of social marketing and beyond!
