The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Using GIFs On Social Media

Facebook and Twitter both allow you to post animated GIFs on your pages. Right now you can use this functionality through IOS and Android apps for Twitter but only through the desktop version for Facebook. When you are scrolling through your timeline you will notice a blue play button, that looks just like other video content or on Facebook they auto-play if you use Giphy. With this new addition, people have more of an opportunity to add creativity and flair to their traditional text posts.

Cool Bro, Why Do I Care?

• With the new features, you can create posts that help you stand out from the loud noise that Twitter makes. Did you know that there were 9,914 tweets sent in 1 second on August 24, 2015? Twitter is primarily all text, which makes most of the updates look very similar. By adding a unique moving gif, your updates are going to become more attractive to your followers.
• Improve your performance on Twitter. Social Media Today shares that “visual content is processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text.” A GIF can quickly communicate an emotion or a concept to a follower much faster than your basic text message.
• Videos or text-based updates account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook.
• There are a lot of companies already taking advantage of GIFs on social media. Take a look at HuffingtonPost’s recent GIF wishing students a happy first day of class 

4 Ways To Use GIFs in Social Media Marketing

Whatever your goal is for social media there is always a different creative way to get your message across. You should try using an animated GIF.

1. Add some personality to your brand, and help customers see that you’re people too! If you engage with customers through social media to resolve customer service issues, animated GIFs can add some humor and personality to the exchange.
2. Make your content go viral. Using animated GIFs in your social media strategy or on your blog posts can make your content more viral. If you have blog subscribers who receive emails with new blog posts, animated GIFs can catch their attention and attract more click-throughs to your website. Animated GIFs in a blog can also increase your average visit duration and page views.
3. Show off product highlights, or previews of an upcoming announcement. Animated GIFs can be used to visually highlight features or provide previews of your products. If you are releasing a new product or have a big event coming up, you can use animated GIFs on social to build excitement around it.
4. Highlight your company culture, and create unique content. Animated GIFs are a small but fun way to show off your culture. At Red Branch, we don’t always post ours on social media, but we constantly post them on our internal communication platform.

Animated GIFs can help give outsiders a glimpse of what it’s like to work with you. Even if they are a potential candidate or a customer.

As a marketing company, we are always coming up with new ideas to attract, convert and engage our fans. We not only do this for ourselves we do it for our clients too. As I like to say, “what works today isn’t going to tomorrow.” So find something new and innovative to share and engage better with your audience.

Great GIF Resources:

• Giphy allows you to search by topic and has a Chrome extension.
• GIFKeyboard is available on the App Store and allows you to use GIFs in texting and it’s everything but you have to give them access to your keyboards, which some security experts do not recommend.
• Facebook now has its own integrated GIF keyboard (but only in Facebook Messenger?)
• MakeaGIF.com does just what it says on the tin!

Eric Foutch

Managing Partner at Red Branch Media.

Eric Foutch is a Managing Partner at Red Branch Media, a leading digital marketing agency specializing in SaaS and technology clients. With 12+ years of experience and a track record of driving results, Eric is committed to helping SaaS companies navigate the complex world of digital marketing and achieve sustainable growth.