To say that GIFs are a thing on social media would be an understatement.
After all, according to this post on the Twitter blog, over 100 million GIFs – those short, often silly, animated graphic images – were shared last year by people on Twitter. And the likelihood of even more being shared in 2016 is pretty good, especially after the recent introduction of Twitter’s new GIF search feature that includes both GIPHY and Riffsy libraries.
Now whenever you’re composing a Tweet or Direct Message, all you have to do is click the GIF icon below the text field to browse a vast collection of GIFs, one of which you can choose to enhance your message.
Congratulating a colleague on the publication of her new book? Add a GIF for applause. Excited your team won the big game? That calls for a high five. Someone you know running his first marathon? Wish him good luck.
There are countless reasons to add GIFs to your Tweets. Not only are they a fun way to add meaning to your messages, but most important to those of us who use Twitter for business, they can be an effective way to capture followers’ attention and increase engagement rates.
So as I said the first time I used this new feature the other day, thanks, Twitter, for making it so easy to share GIFs.
Thanks, @twitter, for making it so easy to share GIFs via your new #GIF search feature: https://t.co/h8YeIVOYbT pic.twitter.com/rcRHYY0oFo
— Bob Cargill (@cargillcreative) March 13, 2016
