You can GIF with this, or you can GIF with that.

That whole alphabet system thing is so 7th century BC.

We all (hopefully) know that animated GIFs are nothing new. Graphics Interchange Format (aka GIF) is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987. The developers pronounced it jif, like the peanut butter. But I guess they also pronounced graphics as giraffics.

Animated GIFs have particularly blown up on Tumblr as a primary form of media shared. You can get lost in there for days on end.

Until recently, though, sharing GIFs on Twitter and Facebook has been difficult. Twitter finally realeased a feature that allows animated GIFs to be viewed directly within your timeline and Facebook has come around some too (more on that below). When it comes to engagement, especially from a brand, utilizing media in clever ways can be one of your best strategies. GIFs can often be the perfect extra touch for many occasions.

But the real question is: Where do I find that perfect GIF?

Answer: Giphy.

Giphy is a massive database of animated GIFs. Giphy is to GIFs what Google Image is to images. If you’re a community manager, social media marketer, or whatever else you want to call your position of writing tweets for a fun brand, then Giphy should be at the forefront of your toolbox. You can either save a GIF and upload it to Twitter, or you can share the direct link from within the webpage, and Twitter will add the GIF into the timeline. I avoid the latter method because I don’t like the extra link cluttering up my character field.

For Facebook, uploading a GIF directly does not work. It will come out as a still image. However, sharing the link from Giphy does work. It will embed the looping animated GIF for all of your friends to enjoy! One little tip is once the GIF is pulled from the link and embedded, delete the link from your text field to clean things up a bit.

And for all you Chrome users, go get yourself this handy dandy little Giphy extension for finding the perfect GIF on the fly.

Now, GIF on with it.

Smarter Social Monitoring with Mention

If you spend time browsing through multiple tweet streams in Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, or if you clutter up your email inbox with Google alerts, you may want to look into Mention. I started using this app with Land of a Thousand Hills about a month ago, and I cannot imagine working without it now.

With Mention, you set up various “Alerts” that can be customized to include a single word, phrase, or set of words. For example, I have a Land of a Thousand Hills alert that pulls in anything on the web that includes “Land of a Thousand Hills,” “@1000HillsCoffee,” “1000HillsCoffee”, or “Thousand Hills Coffee.” Anytime any of these expressions are used, whether in a tweet, Facebook update, Instagram, blog post, or whatever, I see it. And the best part is, I can react from directly within Mention. I can retweet a tweet, reply to a tweet, comment on a Facebook post, etc. Mention even integrates with Buffer so you can add retweets or replies to your Buffer to be scheduled out. If you handle support or customer service as a team, mentions can be shared and responses can be delegated amongst the team.

Really, I do not think that I can recommend this app enough. If your company or personal brand requires you to be able to actively listen or monitor what is being said to you or about you, or even what is being said to or about your competitors, you need to sign up for a free trial of Mention. I am pretty sure you’ll be sold within the first week at how great of a tool this is.