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A Simple Overlooked Technique - Yet so Effective
Last week, Google+ announced that you can use animated gifs for your profile photo, and provided some search results on how to get started. Playing nicely with gifs is yet another feature that Google+ has over Facebook, and I believe gifs should be a regular part of your content creation arsenal.
Because of their incredible longevity (in internet years, they're like a million years old), animated gifs are one of those internet curiosities that shouldn’t be ignored or dismissed as being just for kids. Yes, gifs can be annoying, especially when there are too many placed in close proximity of one another, but when used correctly, gifs can breathe life into otherwise static posts, and the possibilities for repurposing are immense.
With younger social media users, gifs are as popular as ever, if not moreso -- If you've ever used Tumblr, you know exactly what I mean.
Twitter's 6-second video app, Vine, sought to capitalize on the popularity of animated gifs by doing them one better and including audio, but I would argue that audio is the worst thing about Vine. Too much rustling wind and club noise dampens the experience for me.
Google+ makes adding an animated gif as your profile picture super easy -- just upload it as if it were any other photo. But, making your gifs work for you isn't always so simple.
Here are a few examples and ideas for when to use them:
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