So, you are using Instagram to improve your sales, but you still believe there is something else that needs to be done to make the most out of this social media? You are right! It is not enough to just create an account and wait for a miracle to occur. This is why, today, we bring to you a practical guide for you to learn how and what to use GIFs for. Let’s get to it!

What is a GIF on Instagram Story?

Firstable, we should keep in mind that the GIFs on the stories are not the same we could usually find on the internet. When talking about GIFs on the stories, we are talking about images or words that have the characteristics of being made on a clear background. This because they work as an animated sticker that you could put on top of your story.

There is a certain package of GIFs on Instagram that you could use as often as you wish. But the true novelty is to be able to create your own personalized GIFs.

How it all started?

As you should keep in mind, at the beginning, one could just post simple stories, both at images and video. Back at the starting of 2018, Instagram close a partnership with the famous brand Giphy, which, at the same time, works with Twitter and Facebook. It was since then that stories on Instagram became yet one more key feature and mainly, from one user to another.

Of course, when using the social media for personal purposes, that was an amazing update, but when going into the business world, it was even better! With this update, you could direct in a better way the focus for attention. The GIF could even be a CTA calling for a certain action. Are you picturing how useful this could be for you to spread a word and ask for an immediate answer from your audience?

How to add GIFs on your Instagram Stories?

Adding those animated designs on your stories is very simple. As previously stated, there are two types: the basic Instagram GIFs and the personalized animations. In order to use any of these, there are some steps to follow, but very simple, do not worry about it! Let’s see what should be kept in mind for those two cases:

Step by step to use GIFs

Using Instagram GIFs is very simple, just follow these four steps:

1- Create a Story.

2- Select the option GIF, on the edit part.

3- Go to the search bar and look for your desired theme.

4- Choose the GIF of your liking.

Step by Step to create and use personalized GIFs

To have your own GIFs, you will have to use the Giphy tool and follow a few steps, becoming a sort of partner to the brand:

1- Create a brand account on Giphy. You will be asked to provide some data, such as e-mail, name of your brand, contact, URL of your website, amongst others. It should be said, these are accounts meant for artists and companies, being different than regular accounts, because, as previously said, they work as a sort of partnership, having to choose the category. In other words, they are different paths.

2- After done with the registration, Giphy will send you an e-mail explaining that, firstable, you must go through a basic validation in order for your account to be authorized.

3- Once your brand profile is done, you could start loading your GIFs, needing to create 10 starting GIFs for the account to be correctly verified.

4- There are two ways to load up a GIF. One is to load up an existing GIF by clicking in UPLOAD. In case you do not want an existing GIF, you will have to click on CREATE, where you will be able to upload images, videos or words to animate them.

5- Once the GIF is loaded, you will be asked for some info, like HASHTAGS (for people to find your GIF) and RAITING, this is, for people the GIF will be introduced to. The alternatives as far as ratings go are G (suitable for all audience), PG (suitable for kids), PG-13 (suitable for kids of 13 year-old and younger) and R (suitable for adults).

6- Contact Giphy support, through the email partnerships@giphy.com ; requesting the verification. This is a must in order for your GIFs to appear officially on the Instagram stories.

7- Finally, you will be able to add your own GIFs as if they were originally from Instagram.

Make the most out of your GIFs with these tips

1- Export your files on clear background.

2- Adapt your images to the ideal size of 600×600 pixels, they cannot be bigger than 100 MB.

3- Under the GIF definition, always select it as a loop, this means, with continuous action.

4- Even though GIFs up to 15 seconds may be accepted, in order for them to load up with no delay, the ideal time is around 5 seconds.

5- Use, for example, GIFs with arrows that suggest continuity on the next story. This improves your retention.

6- When it is about branding, remember to respect the visual identity of your brand.

What do you think? Would you improve your Instagram stories with your own GIFs? Plan which could your ideal animations be, according to your usual posts, and start working on them in order to differentiate your brand from the competitors!

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