It took quite long time for the world’s most popular and biggest social networking site, Facebook to understand that the users get joy from short animated clips or GIFs. Facebook refused to fill its site with flashy animated banner ads for a decade. According to the sources, initially Mark Zuckerberg thought that these would interrupt the user experience and could stunt growth. But so many times we have come across GIF content going viral on Twitter. Even Google+ supported GIFs but Facebook refused to allow GIF. Now, finally Facebook allows to use GIF’s in ads and Page posts.

Facebook Allows GIFs In ads:

As per the reports of TechCrunch, Facebook has decided to relax its standards and the popular social networking site started to allow businesses to post GIFs as ads and Page posts. GIFs can’t go in the tiny sidebar ads which Facebook is phasing out, only ‘Boosted’ Page posts, which make up most of the ads you see in your feed will be supported. The first businesses with the ability to share GIF’s on their page are Wendy’s and Coca-Cola’s Brazilian brand Kuat are the . Wendy’s ad shows a salad being constructed, while Kuat’s is basically the rainbow-shooting poptart meme Nyan Cat with a brand name slapped on.

Coca-Cola/Kuat GIF Ad

We’ve found that adding video in Facebook News Feed Ads increases post engagement by 3-5x, on average, but often by even more. Even a stupid, boring post can be made interesting using moving imagery, via a video or GIF. See the example above; no matter how hard you try, you just can’t make a salad “look” as good with a few lines of text and a static picture. The GIF makes it eye-catching, but also shows off the layers that go into the making the salad – use your imagination and apply this technique to your products.

Wendy’s GIF Ad

Facebook stated “GIFs can be a fun and compelling way to communicate, so we’ve started testing GIF support in posts and boosted posts for a small percentage of Facebook Pages. We will evaluate whether it drives a great experience for people before rolling it out to more Pages.” So it all depends on audience feedback, really. But considering that more and more users have been posting their own clickable GIF icons in their posts lately, these could easily catch on, especially for those that prefer a little more animation in their news feeds.