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How To Make An Animated GIF: Ultimate Guide For Beginners

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 Are you looking for a way to convey your message more effectively?

 

Struggle to get the attention of your readers or followers?

 

Well, you’re not alone because we’re living in the age of Information Overload, it’s getting harder and harder to grab your audience’s attention.

 

Did you know that our brains process visuals 60,000 faster than text-only information?

 

That’s why we all know that video has the power to tell a story in a different way than still content can…and an animated GIF is just a perfect fit in the middle ground!

 

Related: How to get High-quality Images for Free

 

Have you thought about using animated GIFs in your marketing?

The Benefits of using Animated GIFs in Marketing

 

GIFs are a lot of fun and have become wildly popular all over the Internet for very good reasons:

 

 

 

What Are GIFs Made Of?

 

A GIF is basically a series of still image frames coded into a single file. The single file is encoded as graphics interchange format (well known as GIF). 

 

There are two main methods in creating a GIF:

1. Using a series of images

-Select and combine a few images to create a GIF. For example, this GIF is made up of few different images of places for their upcoming meetup.

 

 

2. Using a short clip from a video

– You can use your own video or any compatible URL to a video to create a gif. During the process of making a GIF, the audio will be stripped so you might want to choose a clip that shows some actions or emotions that can deliver your message well.

How to Make a GIF

Here are the top 3 best free GIF makers that you use to create a GIF. 

 

1. GIPHY.com

 

Giphy is the internet’s largest search engine for GIFs. Thanks to its GIFs maker tool, users can now create their own GIFs, instead of just searching and sharing other GIF on its platform. 

 

If you would like to store your GIFs in one handy place, you can sign up a free account. You’d be able to create your own GIF channel at https://giphy.com/username. 

 

 

Without an account, you can make a GIF too! Just click on the “create” button and start creating!

 

 

You can choose to make your GIF from a video or a series of images.

Method 1: Create a GIF From a Series of Still Images

Click “Choose Photo or GIF”, upload multiples images that you want to use to create a GIF. Then, choose the image duration by dragging the slider to adjust the time for each image. In the next step, you can enter a caption or stickers if you like.

 

Method 2: Create a GIF from a Video

Click “Choose Video”, pick your source material from Vimeo, Youtube, any other compatible site. You can also upload your own existing file to the site and start making a GIF.

 

Next, drag the sliders to set the duration and start time of the GIF.

 

Then, click “Continue to Decorate“. You can add a caption if you desire. There’s a variety of font colors, styles and animations to choose from. There is an option to add stickers or filter effects too. 

 

When you’re finished, click “Continue to Upload”

 

And lastly, add some relevant tags to your GIF to make it searchable in Giphy. Besides that, you can choose to share the GIF publicly on Giphy or keep it as private.

Note: If you like to share your GIFs on your social media channels, you have to set it to Public.

Done! Now you can start sharing your GIF directly to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Reddit. 

 

And it’s always a smart move to download it first so that you can re-uploading the GIF to any other sites easily.

 

This is one of the most user-friendly and powerful sites in making GIFs. It’s worth your time to check this out.

 

 

2. Gifs.com

Gifs.com is an amazing site where you can create your own GIFs easily and quickly. To get started, simply upload your own video files or paste the video URL that you’d like to use for your GIF. Currently, this site supports video from Instagram, Vine and Youtube.

 

After you’ve selected the video file, click “continue”, you will come to a simple editor page. There is a timeline below the video, pick a time frame that you’d like to convert into a GIF.

 

 

Continue to edit the GIF by adding a caption, stickers, and some other effects (blur, hue, invert etc). 

 

Once you’re satisfied with your editing, click “create gif” and start sharing your GIF with the world! You can choose to copy the provided URL or download the GIF so you can re-uploading to any site that you want to share.

 

3. EZGIF.com 

EZGIF is a user-friendly site which offers you two options to convert videos to GIFs. You can upload a video file from your computer or paste a video URL into the given field. Do note that the max file accepted is 100MB.

 

After uploading the video, you can continue to edit by selecting start and end time. If you choose to do nothing, it will make a GIF from the first 5 seconds of the video by default. There are few tips and limitations that you should know so you can take full advantage of the features offered. 

 

Besides videos, you can choose to upload multiple images to create a GIF. To get started, upload your images, adjust the animation speed, frame order… and voila! You can now make a gif in minutes with few images.

 

 

Conclusion

 

In the attention economy, using GIFs in your marketing is a very effective way to capture your audience’s attention. Furthermore, with the help of this online tools like Giphy, Gifs and EZGIF, you can start making your own GIFs for free. Start using GIFs on your social media channels, blog posts and emails. Happy GIF-ing

What do you think?

 

Have you started using animated GIFs in your marketing?

 

Do you have any favorite GIF maker tips or tools that you think everyone should know? 

Share with us in the comment below

 

And lastly, if you liked this post, don’t forget to share it on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

 

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