What Are Gifographics & 10 Ways To Use Them in Your Visual Content | Express Writers
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What Are Gifographics & 10 Ways To Use Them in Your Visual Content

by | Jan 28, 2016 | Content Marketing

What Are Gifographics & 10 Ways To Use Them in Your Visual Content

There’s a hot new player in the world of content creation, and it’s called a gifographic.
Gifographics are the next level to the amazing visual content piece known as an infographic. And gifographics are taking it to a whole ‘nother level. In addition to being more engaging and more interactive than infographics, gifographics are also ideal for mobile displays and primed to make a huge impression in content marketing as we know it.
Curious to find out about this innovative form of content?
Curious to learn how you can use them in your content marketing?
Let’s discuss.
Gifographics

What is a Gifographic?

In many ways, gifographics are the close cousin to an infographic. Infographics, of course, use images and text to provide an informative piece of content for users. GIF-ographics are an infographic… and just what the title suggests, with the parts of a moving GIF. See the differences in our two creations below.

Much like an infographic, a gifographic works by providing a platform for a lot of information in a small space. Gifographics, like infographics, also feature images but, decidedly unlike infographics, gifographics are animated. And “gifographic” is a term that Neil Patel coined back in 2014. 
“GIF” is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format. GIFs were one originally of the earliest forms of moving images on the web and they’re still massively popular. Sites like BuzzFeed use GIFS in their content all the time for high engagement, and Facebook just began allowing GIFs in its newsfeeds. Twitter allows direct GIF uploads, too. For example, here’s a GIF from a Twitter participant during one of our #ContentWritingChats:

While GIFs are short, sweet, and often hilarious, they lack one big component: they don’t often provide a ton of information for users. While they’re great for cat videos or images of people falling down, they haven’t dominated the “informative content” market until now. Combined with the traditional format of an infographic, gifographics have the potential to provide huge value for users and marketers alike. Published late 2015, our gifographic already has over 300 shares thanks to the fact that it illustrates the concepts while also providing a transcript and some helpful information for our readers. Effective, right? We think so, too. We even repurposed and cut the top of it as a GIF for an Instagram video:


While infographics are far from dead and are still effective in many ways, it goes without saying that they don’t work as well today as they used to. This is part of the reason gifographics are coming into popularity right now. One of the most important aspects of a gifographic is that it harnesses the power of video content, which is fantastic because an estimated 69% of all web traffic will be directed at video content by 2017. This means that the future of gifographics is bright and that you can benefit from incorporating them into your marketing strategy right now.

The Content Sea

We’ve talked before about the idea of the “content sea.” Today, the average social media user is confronted with MORE than 285 pieces of content each day. What’s more, people receive roughly 121 emails a day and the web at large shares over 27 million pieces of content on a daily basis. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that we’re suffering from content burnout. This may be one of the many reasons that people are on the lookout for concise, valuable, informative pieces of content now more than ever: we simply don’t have time to read 5,000 word articles or pick apart the meaning of long-form.
It would seem that we’re between a rock and a hard place. As the web continues to grow and as tech continues to develop, everyone needs content to make their businesses run, but more and more consumers are becoming burnt out on content.
So what’s the answer?
How do we create content that readers want to read? How do we create content that doesn’t immediately sink to the bottom of the content sea?
The answer is simple: make it more interesting.
This, my friends, is where the power of gifographics enters the picture.

How Gifographics Can Help Your Content Stand Out

Gifographics combine several of the things consumers love – information, visual interest, and conciseness – into one highly-shareable and highly-viral package. Gifographics are extra exciting right now because they’re just starting to break into the mainstream. While people beyond a select group of content marketers are starting to get familiar with this content form, they haven’t saturated the market yet, which means the grounds are ripe for marketers who want to jump on the bandwagon.
One of the reasons that gifographics are so effective is that people are 323% more successful at following directions that include illustrations than text-only directions. Additionally, we remember an average of 80% of what we see, compared to only 30% of what we read. These facts illustrate the importance of gifographics and prove that marketers who aren’t using them should be.

5 Key Benefits of a Gifographic

Aside from being immediately understandable and digestible by readers, gifographics offer a series of important benefits:

1) Gifographics boost SEO

According to Neil Patel, gifographics are one of the primary pieces of content that marketers can use to boost SEO rankings, help build authority, and gain readers.

2) Gifographics go viral

If you think infographics are the perfect vessel for “Going viral” you should check out what gifographics have the potential to do. A recent Buffer study found that when blog posts feature animated graphics, they grab more social shares than their un-animated counterparts.

3) Gifographics create engagement

If you were to take all of the information we used in our SEO content gifographic, it would read like a small novel. In gifographic format, though, it’s bite-sized, pared down to what’s important, and easy for readers to approach.

4) Gifographics accommodate the mobile revolution

2015 was the year that mobile search surpassed desktop search in 10 countries and there isn’t a content format that’s better for mobile devices than the gifographic. The value of vertical displays and immediately accessible information can’t be underestimated and marketers who put out gifographics are likely to see a boost in their mobile traffic.

5) Gifographics create diverse content

The average B2B marketer uses 12-14 different types of content in his/her marketing system. As new types of content continue to emerge, this number will continue to grow. High-performing types of content like the gifographic, however, have staying power that has the potential to add a great deal of value to a marketing plan.

10 Tips on How to Use Gifographics in Your Content Marketing

1) Use Gifographics to repurpose content

A gifographic is the ideal platform for repurposing content. Whether you’re looking to revive some old posts or produce a jump in your traffic, gifographics have the potential to come to the rescue. Use them to turn seldom-read blog posts into interactive visual content or to compile facts.
According to Content Marketing Institute, one of the biggest goals of B2B marketers going into 2016 is to “create visual content.” The gifographic provides a solid platform for doing that while also allowing you to get some extended use out of your old content.

2) Use Gifographics to diversify your content

One of the biggest secrets to effective content marketing is diversification. By using a variety of different types of content in your marketing strategy, you keep readers’ interest and ensure that you’re meeting your audience on their various platforms. Gifographics are a fantastic way to shake up your content creation schedule and provide your readers with content they’ll love. Although there aren’t statistics available for gifographics quite yet, we know that marketers who use infographics grow their web traffic an average of 12% compared to their counterparts. If this is true, just imagine what a gifographic can do!

3) Use Gifographics to add interactive content to your site

Interactive content yields 50% more engagement and twice as many conversions as non-interactive content. Sites such as KissMetrics have been proclaiming that the age of interactive content is upon us for months now and there’s no doubt that they’re right. Interactive gifographics use two-way quiz-like questions to promote interaction with the reader and promote bonding to your company. By combining the forces of interactive and visual content, you create a content supernova that’s bound to break the Internet.

4) Use Gifographics to showcase your brand’s personality

The days of stock photos and boring company websites are dead, or at least they should be, and one of the most sure-fire ways to stand out in the content sea is to create content that showcases your brand’s unique personality. A gifographic is a great way to do that. Because a gifographic allows you to have complete control over the imagery and text used, it’s a fantastic platform for helping your customers understand your culture and insights even more. This can help promote bonding and engagement from customers.

5) Use Gifographics to promote social sharing

Now that popular social media sites like Facebook are embracing GIFs, the gifographic has virtually unlimited potential. Create and distribute gifographics to increase social sharing or to expand your reach on social sites. This can spread the word about your brand and create increased sales and conversions over time. Since visual content creates about 94% more views than non-visual content and has the potential to increase your likelihood of being contacted by qualified leads by upwards of 60%, it makes sense to incorporate visual gifographics into your social media strategy.

6) Write clear titles for your Gifographics

In many ways, a gifographic needs to be treated like any other piece of visual content. Your readers need to understand immediately what it’s about and how it can/will benefit them. While gifographics can be hugely informative, they also possess so much information that they can be overwhelming if they’re not laid out correctly. For this reason, it’s important to write great headlines for your gifographics (just like it is everywhere else) and to ensure that your readers can immediately discern what the gifographic is about.

7) Make your Gifographics relevant

Just because gifographics are fun and exciting doesn’t mean you can make one about just anything and expect it to perform well. Instead, focus on making your gifographics relevant to your audience. For example, Express Writers is a content marketing agency, so I created a gifographic about SEO content. This is relevant to our clients and readers and provides value for both groups.

8) Make sure the information in your Gifographic is credible

This is a very important pointer – gifographics are content that is boiled down to nothing besides facts and statistics and, because of this, it pays to check and double check that all of your facts are accurate and your sources are reliable. This saves you from getting into hot water with competitors and ensures that you’re providing valuable content to your audiences.

9) Keep your Gifographics consistent

Just like everything else in content marketing, it’s important to maintain a level of consistency in your gifographics. This doesn’t mean that every one of them has to be exactly the same. Rather, it means that you should maintain a level of consistency in your voice, formatting, style, and information. This will help spread the word about your brand and ensure that you become a leader in the gifographic revolution.

10) Refresh Gifographics regularly

Even if you create a great gifographic, you can’t exactly expect to publish it and then ride the wave of its success forever. Not only is this unrealistic, but it’s also short-sighted. Great gifographics are valuable, yes, but they need to be backed up by the creation of other great gifographics. To ensure that your company is meeting this need, include gifographics in your editorial calendar and be sure to distribute them regularly alongside your other content. This will keep you on the cutting edge of gifographic creation and ensure that you’re staying atop the content sea.

Conclusion

As content marketing continues to change, it goes without saying that we’re going to see the emergency of new and exciting forms of content. Right now, the gifographic is the hot kid on the block… make that “sassy” kid, in fact!

sassy kid
So, tying it into your content strategy ensures that you’re providing value and information to your readers, which is the first and only way to truly win at content marketing. Thumbs up to you!
We offer gifographic copy and creation services. Head on over to our infographic product and select Gifographics!

Tags: gifographics | infographics