In a move that will forever animate your Twitter feeds – GIFs have finally arrived on Twitter. Announced today by the @Support team, native uploading of GIFs is now accessible via the Twitter website and also iOS and Android mobile apps.
This isn’t the first time GIFs have come to Twitter though. While technically unsupported, for years we all knew that rando who had a GIF as their avatar, and later they were semi-officially supported through Twitter Cards from providers like Giphy and Storify. However today is the first time you can publish natively.
You can watch a GIF in your timeline by simply clicking a play button that shows up over top of them. GIFs, unlike Vines from Twitter’s own Vine App, will not play automatically in your feed. Clicking on a GIF’s link will open up the card for that individual tweet, playing the GIF automatically.
GIFs are already more than popular on Tumblr, and Pinterest also offers support for uploading these animated clips. It won’t be long before we start to see GIFs in promoted tweets, and sure enough brands are already experimenting with the new feature, as you can see below from the first 11 brands we noticed:
1. About.com
GIF: How to Make Perfect Bacon, courtesy of @daniloalfaro @aboutfood! (Full directions here: http://t.co/qm2M3GPCsv ) http://t.co/a7vsrtto5Q
— About.com (@aboutdotcom) June 18, 2014
2. Absolut Vodka
In case you hadn’t heard, Twitter now supports GIFs. Thanks, Twitter! #partytime http://t.co/2JpGUvFbMS — Absolut Vodka (@AbsolutCanada) June 18, 2014
3. Denny’s Diner
— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) June 18, 2014
4. Victoria’s Secret
What can we say? Angels ❤️ GIFs. http://t.co/Kmp80nOJiW
— Victoria’s Secret (@VictoriasSecret) June 18, 2014
5. Hamburger Helper
Someone say something about GIFs? http://t.co/K8TtdECRFi
— Helper (@helper) June 18, 2014
6. Samsung Mobile
You just HAVE to send one more GIF on Twitter before your phone dies? Switch to Ultra Power Saving Mode. #GALAXYS5 http://t.co/nvGXD5IE22 — Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) June 18, 2014
7. IBM
In honor of Twitter now officially supporting GIFs…here’s one of our favs http://t.co/gPClYnlSSI http://t.co/4FjBF70Xsm
— SmarterPlanet (@SmarterPlanet) June 18, 2014
8. GE
#BrilliantMachines: Now in #GIF form. http://t.co/ma58anRPP6 — General Electric (@generalelectric) June 18, 2014
9. Ritz Crackers
Care for some cheese? How about some cheese GIFs? See more here: http://t.co/1tgoCuSlhd http://t.co/vd3uIRiQ1x
— Ritz crackers (@Ritzcrackers) June 18, 2014
10. TV Land
Did you hear about GIFs on Twitter?!! We are Marcia Brady level excited. http://t.co/4jiQicgV0s — TVLand (@tvland) June 18, 2014
11. House of Cards
#DontMessWithCashew http://t.co/i5gFaLrMVD
— House of Cards (@HouseofCards) June 18, 2014
Bonus Brands:
Salesforce
Unclog Your Sales Pipeline http://t.co/ikylfpSf9u http://t.co/3A7T2OWiUo
— Salesforce (@salesforce) June 18, 2014
Charmin
#GIFs: Helping Charmin keep Twitter cheeky. #tweetfromtheseat http://t.co/cDQF7IwsQe
— Charmin (@Charmin) June 18, 2014
Re/code
That’s right, GIFs work on Twitter! http://t.co/48ESkhCTAO
— Re/code (@Recode) June 18, 2014
What other brands have you seen posting GIFs so far? Leave your favorites (or your brand’s) in the comments below.
UPDATE: Looks like Wendy’s is already promoting their first GIF-enhanced Tweet on Twitter (and it’s an awesome endless loop).
Is there something on our cheek? http://t.co/MqyQYAFckr
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) June 18, 2014