The Benefits of Animated GIFs in Email and On Facebook

The Benefits of Animated GIFs in Email and On Facebook

Animated GIFs have been a dominant trend in the digital marketing world for some time now, going viral on blogs and social media platforms over and over again. When a newsworthy topic is around long enough and gets enough attention, you can bet creative marketers will start experimenting with ways to grab attention.

So what the heck is an “animated GIF,” it’s really just a series of images coded into a single file. The original FIF specification was introduced by Compuserve clear back in 1997. Most original GIF were simple flames or waving flags and became unpopular in the 2,000’s.

Key Benefits to Marketers

Easy to Digest
We all know that online video has the power to grab attention to tell a complete story better then still images. GIFs, if you think about it, are the perfect middle ground between video and images in that they are a photo that is still alive. GIFs quickly grab your attention, are short, yet they can extract a lesson from their highlighted movement.

Elicit Calls-To-Action
Although non-intrusive, GIFs grab the viewers eye and guides you on a specific path to a specific moment within the bigger picture. Whatever that one thing is the GIF focuses on, your eye is going to go to it.

The ability to capture that focus makes GIFs good calls-to-action vehicles. Marketers are always looking for ways to capture the attention of an audience and animated GIFs might present the perfect opportunity to try something new.

Stimulate Emotional Impact
Marketers use GIFs to mesmerize their viewers with elegance and simplicity that wouldn’t have necessarily been noticed with a still image. Picking the right moment to focus on when creating the GIF is an important decision.

The potential for animated GIFs to connect with followers emotionally is high for marketers. An emotional message can bring people inspiration, humor and harmony. This emotional impact to the viewer can often extend the reach of GIFs to new audiences.

Uses of Animated GIFs in Social Media
Want to make your social media really pop? Use animated GIFs.  Animated GIFs are a great way to grab attention on any social media platform, as long as you know how to properly use them.

Uses of Animated GIFs in Email Marketing
GIFs display the same way regular images do. That means you can experiment with replacing some of your still images with animated ones. Stats, conducted by BlueFly, show that emails featuring an animated GIF pulled in 12% more revenue then still images. Now is a good time to test GIFs in your emails to see how they work for you.

Online GIF Makers
Imgflip.com – Make your own images with their Meme Generator or Animated GIF maker.
GIFit! – Available on Chrome store. Application that allows you to make GIFS on Youtube.com while using the Chrome browser.

If you want to search online there are many other GIF makers available. No matter which service you use to make them, they are are great way to grab attention both on social media platforms and in email marketing campaigns. Have fun with them.

 

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