If you love GIFs, you’ve probably heard of Giphy. The site offers a gargantuan database of short animated images, helping you easily find and link to the perfect internet skit at a moment’s notice.
On Twitter, many brands and publishers upload images to complement an important link. Posting two URLs is pretty inefficient, however, and gives you even fewer characters to write a tweet.
Enter Giphy.
The company has effectively smashed the two together. You can now find any GIF on Giphy and then pair it with a link of your choosing. The site will create a shortened URL which, when tweeted, will show the original animated GIF. The trick is that when the user clicks on the GIF (or the shortened link within the tweet), they’ll be sent to the original webpage you specified.
One GIF. One webpage. Both together as a single short link.
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This means news outlets can drive readers to their articles with nothing but GIFs. Retailers can point customers to a product page. Musicians can highlight a section of their latest concert or music video. And of course, pranksters can use it to trick their friends and family.
Nike is already using it for their official Twitter accounts – it’s difficult to think of a better endorsement. So go forth, use those GIFs and save Twitter characters for whatever witty one-liner you think of next.
Image Credit: LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images
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