Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

As a marketer, you are probably already aware that images are important. They're easier to digest than a bunch of words on a page and can help support your other content by telling a story in ways that words cannot. Whether in social media posts or in blog posts, images help your audience to better understand what you are talking about, plain and simple.

Cinemagraphs can take things a step further.

What is a cinemagraph, you ask? The artists over at Cinemagraph.com – where the cinemagraph was essentially born – describe them as "an image that contains within itself a living moment that allows a glimpse of time to be experienced and preserved endlessly.

"In plain English, a cinemagraph is really just a fancy GIF – a file format often used to create short, infinitely-looping animations for the web. Check out the example below....

GIFs are great.

And they’re everywhere.

We use them at Buffer in our customer service tweets, our emails, our Slack channel. We include GIFs in marketing emails and team announcements. Anywhere there’s a message; there’s the chance for a GIF.

And what’s more, we’ve found GIFs get great results! GIFs in tweets are one of our top tips for more Twitter engagement. One of our most popular transactional emails we send to customers features a GIF.

Want to know how to create GIFs yourself? And know when and where to share them?

We’ve collected all the best tools, tips, and tricks for an A+ GIF game. Take a look at the list here, and feel free to leave a comment with anything more we can add or help with!...