If you have spent much time on social media, you have probably seen GIFs: those fun, moving graphics that everyone loves to share. There are GIFs to express every sentiment or reaction that you can think of. Chances are, the GIFs you’ve seen are housed at Giphy, the internet’s biggest collection of the popular image files. But they’re more than just a trendy means of expression; you can also use Giphy to promote your business!
Giphy Brand Partners
Anyone can upload GIFs to Giphy, which then makes them available for others to use. As a brand, however, you can take your presence a step farther with Giphy Brand Partners.
Becoming a Giphy Brand Partner has some great advantages:
- Branded Giphy Channel. As a Brand Partner, your channel page (the page that contains all of your GIF uploads) has some added features compared to a personal channel. Brands can upload a header image, add a link to their website, and a brief bio. If your aiming for greater brand recognition, these tools are a huge asset!
- Giphy API Distribution. Brand Partner content is automatically added to the Giphy API, which distributes GIFs to over 600 platforms around the Internet. If you have ever searched for GIFs on Twitter, Facebook Messenger, Slack, or pretty much any other platform that has an integrated GIF search, you are using the Giphy API. As a Brand Partner, your content becomes easily accessible for billions of people via this tool!
- Branded Giphy Embeds. Any content that is uploaded to Giphy can be embedded in blog posts or other web content. As a Brand Partner, any time some embeds your GIFs, they also include your logo, business name, and a link back to your branded channel page.
- Giphy Analytics. Want to see how your GIFs are performing? With a personal account, you don’t have access to that data. A Brand Partner account, on the other hand, includes a dashboard that tells you how many total views you’ve received and downloadable reports showing how each individual graphic is doing. You can also opt to have view counts displayed on your channel page as well as on individual GIF pages.
Signing up for a Giphy Brand Partner account is as easy as filling out a form. You will need to have at least 5 gifs uploaded to your account in order to apply for an upgrade to a brand account.
Create a Strategy for Using GIFs
While Giphy itself isn’t a social media platform, the content you create there can be an important part of your overall social media strategy. Use it as a tool to create graphics that you share across your other social media platforms. This type of strategy does two things:
- Provides an easy way to add engaging posts to your existing social media.
- Gives you the opportunity for greater brand awareness by sharing your content with a much wider audience.
In our first month of having our own Giphy Brand Partners page, our GIFs received over 5 million views. That is far more people than we would have reached in the same time period with just our social media accounts!
Once we create our GIF content, we use it to create posts on Twitter and other social media platforms. Think of your Giphy content as social media post material and create your GIFs around that idea.
Make GIFs People Want to Use
The secret to successful branded GIFs? They shouldn’t look like ads! If you make images that people will want to use, and incorporate your branding subtly, you’ll get a lot more mileage out of them.
Think of ways to incorporate common sentiments, seasonal graphics, or trending topics into your GIF library. Find a balance between your brand message and the things people are searching for on social media.
Not sure how to create GIFs? Stay tuned, because we will be covering that topic soon!
Giphy Tips for Businesses
- Don’t forget your watermark. Add a small, subtle watermark of your logo or business name. You never know where your GIFs will be shared, and you want to make sure that people always know where they came from.
- Always add a source link. Link your GIFs back to your website so that people can find you easily!
- Stay true to your brand. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of GIFs or content topics, but as with anything you put out into the world that is tied to your business, it should always, always, always be true to your voice and consistent with the rest of your branding.
