The GIF animation graphic format is very common today on social networks and regular information sites. Due to the light weight of such files, they do not take up much space on servers, so their use is completely justified. Most often, “gifs” are short animated videos that demonstrate funny incidents from life, jokes and short cooking recipes.
You can create such a file yourself in almost any graphics editor. But what to do if you want to keep the video you like as a souvenir? How to save a GIF?
How to Use GIFs on Social Media | Social Media Marketing
GIFs are a popular content format on social networks.
They attract attention and replace long texts, screenshots and videos. Amplifer editor Anna Averyanova studied how GIFs work on different platforms and how brands use them to promote goods and services
GIFs are popular on social networks, Tumblr users upload 23 million GIFs every day, and 5 million animated images are streamed through Facebook Messenger every day. 2 million GIFs are sent on Slack every month.
How videos work on social networks - Amplifer's guide
GIFs are a good alternative to videos. Looping animation shows the same video sequence as the video, but weighs less and opens faster when the Internet is slow
This is important, because 51% of videos on social networks are viewed from mobile devices
Plus, creating GIFs is cheaper, easier, and faster than videos. That's why communities and brands use animated pictures on social networks. I’ll tell you how GIFs help companies publish interesting content.
To show data
Infographics are the best way to convey important information to the user. 40% of people perceive pictures better than text. When you need to show a lot of data, animated infographics in the form of a gif look smaller and neater than a regular image.
For example, the REHAU company talks about the benefits of polymer structures using gifs on social networks. She showed how warm windows and floors save electricity:
To explain how everything works
13 tools for creating videos, pictures and GIFs - Ampliphera selection
Animated instructions replace long text and a dozen screenshots. Public pages that publish recipes and life hacks in GIFs are popular on social networks.
A GIF is indispensable when you need to show how a service or tool works. For example, at Amplipher we use GIFs in articles, social media, and the Help Center to introduce users to features and updates:
For advancement
Western brands use GIFs to promote products and services. For example, Starbucks released 21 GIFs to promote their Frappuccino. General Electric uses GIFs on Tumblr to explain scientific facts and introduce the brand to a young audience:
General Electric Earth Day GIF
L'Oréal Paris used a GIF on Facebook to promote its new lipstick collection. The brand showed all the shades in one animated picture:
Samsung talks about innovations and its products in GIFs. Thus, the company showed the advantages of the processor of the new Galaxy S8 smartphone:
Galaxy S8 has the world's most advanced processor - its transistors are reduced to 10 nanometers: https://t.co/tqpjuln2Zm pic..com/eFtTjJSN
— Samsung Russia (@SamsungRu) April 7, 2022
For holding competitions
Apple uses GIFs on social networks. We tell you how the company does SMM
Brands and publications use GIFs to attract additional attention to posts on social networks and engage subscribers. For example, Fanta on VKontakte holds competitions with small prizes: RIA Novosti adds gifs to announcements of materials on social networks
The news agency also decided to talk about the drawing of tickets for the final of the EPICENTER esports tournament using a gif:
RIA Novosti adds gifs to announcements of materials on social networks. The news agency also decided to talk about the drawing of tickets for the final of the EPICENTER esports tournament using a gif:
Saving a site manually
The easiest way, which does not require special knowledge and software, is to save sites page by page, manually. Just open one page after another and select the save page option in the browser menu.
Of course, this method has significant drawbacks. This will take a very long time and require a lot of routine work, especially if you want to maintain a large portal. In addition, many dynamic site elements will not work correctly in local mode. There is a high probability that internal hyperlinks will stop functioning, and the menu will become useless - you will have to look for each page in the folder and open it separately.
Where are VKontakte gifs saved?
They are saved to the folder specified in your browser for downloads. It's easy to view the current path:
- open the browser menu;
- go to settings;
- scroll down the list and click on “Advanced”;
- in the “Downloaded Files” section, the download folder is indicated. You can immediately change it by choosing a different path to save files.
The procedure is discussed using the example of the most popular browser, Google Chrome. In other web browsers, the algorithm of actions is similar, and understanding the settings is not so difficult.
Download to computer
Not everyone knows that GIF videos can be played not only in their “native” format, but also in MP4. Thanks to this, you can quite easily download the animation to your PC and watch your favorite clip at any convenient time. To do this, just follow very simple instructions that tell you how to save a “GIF” to your computer:
- Activate file playback in the browser you are using.
- Place the cursor over the moving image and press RMB.
- Select “Save image as” in the window that appears.
- Copy the file to your computer. The GIF will be saved in GIF format.
If the Save image as option does not work, then you must select “Save video” and specify the path to the folder on your PC. In this case, the video will be downloaded in MP4 format. After this, you need to use one of the Internet resources to reformat the saved file back to GIF. Any online converter that converts videos from MP4 format to GIF is suitable for this. On the site, you only need to indicate the path to the folder in which the video is located, and wait until a new document is created, which will also need to be downloaded to your computer.
We learned how to save a GIF to your computer, but you can also download it to your smartphone. This is very important, since most modern phones have the ability to view files in this format.
