Local digital agency Thunderbolt Digital are always keeping abreast of the latest news and updates about Surrey web design, social media and more. Our highly skilled team know how important it is to stay informed about any changes to web design and social media, which is why we keep a close eye on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. It seems that with the new year companies are rolling out update after update, and Twitter is no different with their recent announcement of a brand new GIF feature that will allow users to natively post GIFs.
GIFs (or Graphic Interchange Formats, though we don’t think we’ve ever actually heard anyone call them that!) are fun little active images that at first appear to be a small, silent video, where a particular moment is continuously looped. They’re used in a pretty similar fashion to emoji, that is, to convey emotion or a particular feeling, although they’re also used for archiving purposes too, such as fantastic sporting moments.
With other social media apps such as Tumblr and Facebook Messenger already offering this option, Twitter are determined not to be left in the technological dust and have partnered with GIF databases Giphy and Riffsy in order to offer their users a native GIF library that will soon be available on the official android and iOS apps as well as the desktop site. The GIF feature will not only be for usual tweets, but can be used in direct messaging (DMs) too, which should certainly help out regular tweeters, as the site saw over 100 million GIFs shared in 2015.
Use of pictures certainly increases engagement with tweets, so just how will GIFs impact this; will this even be different at all? Will a native GIF button encourage you to use them more in your tweets? Why not send us one over on the Thunderbolt Twitter!