GIFs might be my favorite way to communicate. Ever. If I could somehow use GIFs in real life, face-to-face conversations rather than rely on my own unremarkable facial expressions, I would.
But, back to the point. My blog isn’t about anything new, or how GIFs will change your life. I just want to share a GIF experiment we tried out that worked (really well) in case you want to try it on your own Facebook pages.
I’m sure you all have seen something like this in your newsfeeds:
(Sorry for the scary example, but IT did premiere this week.)
And then, people respond using the GIF button in the comments section, like this:
It’s a genius idea. So, of course we tried it on the CSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital and Colorado State University Facebook pages. And guys, it’s an amazing way to get engagement. On the hospital’s post, we received almost 100 comments (which is a lot for our small, but mighty page), and CSU’s post has almost FIVE HUNDRED comments.
Visual examples are 👇 but click on the links (👉) to see the actual post and comments: CSU Example | Veterinary Teaching Hospital Example
(Shoutout to Chase for making the beautiful CSU/birth year GIF.)
If you want to experiment with this GIF tactic, here are my two tips:
1. Anchor your post with a video instead of a GIF. Yep, convert your GIF into an mp4, and then loop it in Premiere or iMovie (whatever you prefer) a few times. We’ve noticed we reach far more people when we post videos compared to links, photos or GIFs. It will still look like a GIF to your audience, but Facebook’s algorithm will think it’s a video.
2. Place the text directly over your video. There’s no real reason why. Everyone else is doing it that way, so I think users expect it to be in this format. Plus, I think the text over the video stands out far more than just putting the text in your post.
That’s all I’ve got. I hope you try it. If you do, let me know how it goes: ashley.manweiler@colostate.edu
https://www.facebook.com/coloradostateuniversity/videos/10159266813705615/
https://www.facebook.com/CSUVetHospital/videos/10154514340016968/
https://www.facebook.com/upvee.co/videos/465055953864803/