What are GIFs and Why are They so Popular?
GIFs are very short video clips, often animated or humorous. They are ideal for social media because they’re eye-catching and stand apart from text or static images. While GIFs are mostly known as funny diversions, they can have other uses, such as calling attention to a product or motivating people to take action. Some applications for GIFs include:
- Convey an emotion such as humor, disbelief, anger, or sadness.
- Demonstrate an action or product.
- Make a dry or technical topic more lively.
- GIFs can be inserted into your email messages to make them more engaging.
- Custom GIFs can display your logo, tagline, or anything about your business.
- GIFs can make ads more engaging.
GIFs are a fun and simple way to communicate. They can be used on their own for a quick post or to support other content. Once you start using them, you’ll find that there are lots of scenarios where the appropriate GIF fits right in. The main challenge is finding a GIF when you need one. This is the problem that Gifing solves for you.
An Introduction to Gifing
Gifing bills itself as the leading site offering stock footage for video ads. They have more than 20,000 videos and GIFs in story, square, or portrait format to fit the requirements of all video ad platforms. In addition to GIFs, Gifing has Boomerangs, eye-catching short videos that combine images into a loop. One of the best things about Gifing is that you have easy access to many categories of GIFs. Some of the popular categories include:
- Fashion/Beauty
- Health
- Animals
- Fitness/Sports
- Food/Drink
- Wellness
- Travel
- Money
- Business/Work
- Music
Whenever you want a GIF, you just click on the appropriate category and you’ll find a wide selection to browse through. There’s also a convenient search box where you can type in a topic and find a relevant video.
Why Use GIFs for Video Ads?
Video ads give you a chance to stand out as people today are watching more and more videos. At the same time, attention spans are constantly shrinking, so posting long videos isn’t the best strategy. Concise videos and GIFs, on the other hand, are just right to capture your audience’s attention. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture such as a GIF is worth at least 10,000. Gifing provides instant access to the perfect GIF or video when you need it. Facebook started allowing advertisers to use GIFs in their ads, but this is still a relatively new practice that many businesses haven’t jumped on board with yet.
A GIF is a valuable marketing tool, but its real purpose is to call attention to your ad. Your call to action, offer, and product/service is what ultimately determines how many leads or sales you make. However, getting people to notice you in the first place is the first step, and this is getting more challenging with every passing year. Gifing can be your secret weapon that makes all of your ads stand out.
The Advantages of Gifing
You can find GIFs from many sources. You can also make your own, which is worth doing if you want something exclusive and branded. However, for general usage, several ways of using Gifing can help your marketing.
- Speed and convenience. Once you start using GIFs, you’ll find that you’ll want to use them often. Gifing saves you the time of having to search for the ideal GIF or spend time creating one.
- Using images you find online is always risky, especially when you’re using them for marketing. When you subscribe to Gifing, you can be sure you have a right to use the videos.
- Many of the same images and videos are circulating on the internet. Gifing creates a great deal of original content in-house, which means it’s not circulating everywhere. Of course, other subscribers can use the same images, but usage is still relatively limited compared to many other GIFs you’ll see online.
- Diversity of topics and formats. Gifing lets you express any type of feeling for any type of business or situation. Additionally, you can find formats compatible with every platform such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, email, etc.
- Made for marketers. While you can choose among many categories, Gifing specializes in GIFs and videos for marketing. You’ll find many sub-categories for businesses such as Launch Announcement, Limited Offer, and more.
Guidelines for Choosing the Right GIFs
As GIFs get more popular, new ones are created daily. How do you choose the best ones for a particular ad, product, or post? Consider these questions:
- What is your purpose? Are you trying to build brand visibility, sell a product, or get people to click on an ad?
- Is the GIF relevant? When you browse GIFs, it may be tempting to use one that’s funny or clever. However, it’s also good to remain consistent with your branding. Gifing has a broad enough selection that you can almost always find something that connects with your business or product.
- Does your text go well with the GIF? If you’re using text with your GIF for a call to action, it’s best to keep it short and concise. Too many words will distract viewers. The whole point of a GIF is to engage people with visuals. Use text sparingly.
- Are you using the correct format? As noted, Gifing lets you choose GIFs and videos in multiple formats. You must use the format that fits the platform you’re using.
Pricing for Gifing
Gifing currently offers publicly only one plan option.
- Unlimited: $29 per month. Unlimited downloads for one user. Download HD GIFs without a watermark. Includes a commercial and reseller license.
While an annual plan option is not available on the website, you can try contacting support via the chatbox on the website.
Gifing Discounts
Gifing may run promotions around the seasonal holiday events, Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Christmas,/New Year’s, and on a few other occasions. You can also contact support via chatbox and ask for a discounted annual plan. You can contact us to receive an update on the currently available promotion for Gifing and other promo video services.
Gifing vs. Vidnami
Vidnami, formerly Content Samurai, is another popular video marketing tool. While Gifing offers a wide selection of premade GIFs and short videos, Vidnami is a point-and-click tool that lets you make your own full-length videos. Here are some of the leading features:
- Create unlimited videos, including marketing, influencer, instructional, and course videos.
- 790,000 video clips to choose from.
- More than 125,000,000 royalty-free images.
- Automatic captions. Your clips are automatically transcribed.
- AI-powered technology chooses video clips based on the text you enter.
- Full motion video backgrounds.
- 14 text-to-speech voices.
- Add music with over 30,000 royalty-free music tracks.
- Customize your videos. Choose your colors and fonts, add your logo, clips, music, or voice track.
How much does it cost to use Vidnami? You can either pay $47/month or $397/annually. Either way, you can make unlimited videos and have access to all features. Read our full Vidnami review and get up to 50% off Vidnami.
Both Gifing and Vidnami are easy yet powerful tools to help you create stunning and engaging video clips. Gifing is faster and simpler to use as all you do is choose the GIF you want. It provides a handy way to create video ads quickly. It’s also a bit cheaper as the Pro plan is $299/year. Vidnami, however, has a broader range of features, letting you add video, music, voiceovers, and customized content and can be used not only for ads but also informational videos on Youtube, instructional courses, and more.
Whether you choose Gifing or Vidnami depends on the length, type, and purpose of the content you want to create. Another Gifing alternative which we previously reviewed is Promo.com.
Gifing: Value and Recommendation
GIFs are one of the hottest online marketing trends and there’s no reason to think this will change anytime soon. GIFs, along with short videos and boomerangs, are great for attracting attention and getting viewers to feel a certain emotion. Unlike longer videos, there’s no risk of boring your audience. With Gifing, you can easily find a GIF for every possible occasion.
If you want access to Gifing’s vast and ever-growing selection, you can sign up for free. However, for marketing purposes, you’ll want to sign up for one of the paid plans. For most businesses and marketers, the Pro version of Gifing is ideal for giving you access to unlimited content with a commercial license. Agencies that serve businesses can benefit from the Agency plan. Considering that Gifing is constantly creating new videos and GIFs, membership represents a great value for anyone who wants to boost their visual marketing strategy.
