GIFs are the same old thing, yet their utilization is more well-known than any other time in recent memory. Here’s the reason brands ought to incorporate them as a major aspect of their substance marketing strategy. Marekt your brad, but your logo should ooze class.

GIF, which is an abbreviation for Graphics Interchange Format, was presented in 1987 by Steve Wilhite of CompuServe as another approach to introduce a moving picture.

The internet immediately grasped the GIF and the way that it’s as yet relevant following 29 years demonstrates its incentive in web terms.

Animated GIFs have ruled the world of online hilarity for some time now, they are viral across social media platforms. And when something’s around long enough and gets enough attention, you can bet marketers will start experimenting with ways to turn them into a new tool to add to their marketing toolkit.

Why You Should GIFs for the Marketing of Your Brand

There are tons of reasons why you should use GIFs for the marketing of your brand or your business. It is an animation that brings around swift results and makes them a good choice. Following are some reasons why you should use animated GIFs for your brand or business.

Easy to Use

GIFs are way too easy to use when compared to other media items. According to a stat, almost 100 million GIFs were used by Twitter users in their social activity.

This was back in 2015 and the numbers are bound to increase a lot. The popularity of the GIFs makes it the obvious choice for anyone looking for a medium to market their brand or business.

This fact makes it very appealing for brands and businesses as it is very popular. The popularity factor plays in the brand’s favour and increases their outreach.

Appealing and Effective

GIFs are not only appealing, but also effective as they help enhance a brand’s message with visual content.

It has been observed that people only remember 20% of the text they read without visuals, which reminds us once again why visual power is more important than ever.

As brands prefer to blend their content efforts with their ROI, GIFs may provide the right encouragement for a user to listen to a brand’s message, serving as the ideal call-to-action.

Better Than Images, Costs Less Than Video

A picture is worth a thousand words. An average GIF has almost sixty frames in it which means that a GIF could be worth sixty thousand words! That is astounding and also accurate. GIFs have a better impact than pictures.

One could argue that a video would have a better impact but making a video costs more than developing a GIF. The difference is not a small difference which could be ignored; it is a huge difference in monetary terms.

Nowadays attention spans are getting shorter and shorter as we speak. This makes the use of a GIF more and more important.

Mobile Friendly

As GIFs only last a few seconds, their file size is significantly smaller and the process of uploading them is faster comparing to videos, while the auto loop increases the effectiveness of a brand’s message.

What’s more, their integration on the biggest social networks contributed to their revival and the increased exposure they’ve recently seen.

Twitter even introduced its own GIF keyboard in collaboration with Giphy, making their use even more convenient.

Multi-Platform Usage

GIFs can be used in many social platforms; Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are the most popular ones, which means that a brand may use them to all of them accordingly.

People interact on such platforms and the use of GIFs makes the whole process more interesting than ever. People have a sudden impulse to share GIFs. If the GIF is related to your brand, it will make your brand more popular.

Storytelling Ability

Storytelling can be very effective in a brand’s content strategy, as it builds a relationship with the audience in a more authentic way and, once again, visual content and GIFs in particular can be a vital part of the story.

In fact, GIFs may be used as the ideal middle ground between an image and a video and Disney manages to perfect the use of GIFs on Reddit and it’s no surprise that it’s the most popular brand on Reddit, also having the most engaged fans.

Engaging the Audience

GIFs engage the audience in a way unlike any other. They are popular, likeable and appealing. These factors engage audiences and make their use quite profitable for brands and businesses.

GIFs have been used as a new form of communication among users, with an animated image representing the exact feeling they want to express in each case.

Millions of Choices

There are literally millions of choices when it comes to using GIFs. According to Giphy, there are currently around 150 million original GIFs, while New York Times tried to collect the number of GIFs on the most popular social networks, numbering:

23 million GIFs were posted to Tumblr every day.

Five million GIFs are exchanged on Facebook Messenger daily. More than two million GIF interactions take place on Slack monthly.