Social media marketing 2021: Why are GIFs growing in popularity?

GIF or Graphics Interchange Format has been around for over 30 years. Born in 1987, the GIF went through an unfashionable teenage phase during the late 90s. In 2021, the GIF is more popular than Instagram videos and Vine. Yes, it has finally grown up, and brands would be foolish not to include the format in their social media marketing mix.

GIFs are short animated videos that are shared easily across devices and mediums. If you didn’t know, your favorite memes come in the form of GIFs, and they quickly become viral. 

Today, not only memes but GIFs are being used by several brands to augment their social engagement. Even Starbucks and Samsung use GIFs in their social media campaigns to bring excitement and life to their marketing tactics. The short animated videos are used to express emotions or to entertain the audience. 

So, don’t settle for posting videos across social media and other digital channels. You can easily convert your videos into fun GIFs and share them via text, chat, and Instagram or Facebook messaging. If you don’t know how to change MP4 to GIF, you can download a converter and let the software do the job for you.

Using GIFs with social media marketing

Do you have plans to market your brand online? If you are trying to establish a brand name or expand your existing brand awareness, you can use GIFs. The short animated videos are going viral on every social media platform, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and even WhatsApp. 

GIFs are highly expressive, and you can include them in your digital marketing campaign to help your brand stand out from the rest. Below are a few reasons they’re growing in popularity and can add immense value to your social media campaign. 

1. GIFs express brand personality

Using animated videos to tell your audience about the personality of your brand is a great idea. But, unfortunately, most of the time, brands use overplayed and outdated tactics. GIFs add a new and unique flair to the overall marketing campaign and shows the audience how much you care and are willing to change with time.

Furthermore, GIFs are highly expressive, and you can use them to communicate with your audience. So, if you decide to upload a GIF, ensure to attach keywords with it so it can be easily found. 

2. Audience retention is easy with GIFs

It is difficult to hold the attention of your audience with big blocks of text. Nobody has the time, and after the pandemic, people mostly use social media channels to either upload videos or scroll through them. That’s how TikTok became more popular than ever during the pandemic-induced lockdowns. 

If you need to appeal to the short attention span of your target audience, you have to offer them something simple and attractive. While for a few years, the move has been toward creating videos instead of long, descriptive texts, people are now more interested in GIFs. 

People prefer GIFs over static images, and since they’re animated, they are likely to remain in the audience’s minds much longer. 

3. GIFs are used to create attractive product ads and events

If you want to advertise your product and remain in people’s minds for long, it is best to use animated images. The short animated videos capture the attention of the audience beautifully and lure them into making a purchase. 

Instead of long text, you can use GIFs to highlight the important features of your event or product. So, your audience gets to take a closer look at the product and even share the information with their friends and family. 

4. GIFs are great story-tellers

As you know by now, GIFs are great tools for communicating messages effectively across social media platforms. GIFs are easier to consume, and they are also quite fun. That’s why brands are increasingly using this format to entice their audience and communicate excitingly. If you want to relay your brand story to your audience and want them to remember it, say it with GIFs. 

Animated videos and images are ideal storytelling tools as they hold the audience’s attention for longer and don’t annoy them. People derive joy and entertainment from watching GIFs. 

Wrapping up

GIFs have been rising ever since social media networks made it easier to incorporate them into posts. Both Twitter and Facebook announced their support for GIFs on their website, and it is high time brands utilize the popularity. 

Have you added GIFs to your social media marketing mix yet? If not, you’re missing out on an excellent opportunity to give your brand maximum online exposure. A single GIF can capture the attention of a large audience, so start investing in creating them, or you can convert your videos to GIFs.