Not only are GIFs fun and funny, but for content marketing they are surprisingly functional. To help you better incorporate the animations into your content marketing strategy here are a dozen awesome tools for getting giffy wit it.
Giphy
Whether you’re searching for the best cat GIF to express the complexity of your current emotions.
Or just looking for the perfect memory to share with your audience.
Giphy, a GIF discovery engine, is a solid option to start your search for the optimal animation. a Search by subject or emotion, and quickly browse through a host of options to find the exact match to encapsulate how you feel.
Example: How frustrating it is finding the perfect GIF
Bonus tool: Giphy for Chrome is a handy browser extension packing the full power of Giphy’s discovery engine directly to wherever you are working online. Search, preview and insert the ideal animation at the ideal moment.
Extra Bonus tool: Giphy built an extension for Gmail streamlining GIFs into your email workflow. Once installed, simply search, discover and insert the right GIF for the right message without ever leaving Gmail.
ImgFlip
In addition to the ability to create memes and graphs, ImgFlip also provides a few easy methods for generating GIFs. Starting with simple tools for uploading and converting videos, and still images, into GIFs—ImgFlip also allows you to change the size and speed of your GIF; customize (and add) text, crop, rotate or even reverse the animation.
Free to use, certain limits rein in your gifs, but these limits, and the ability to remove the watermark from the final product, are unlocked with a $9.95 a-month pro subscription.
GifBrewery
For those looking for a locally-installed option, GifBrewery is a powerful tool for capturing and creating GIFs on Macs. This $3.99 app allows users to capture anything on their screen and morph it into an animation. Additionally, the latest version also packs the ability to capture video directly from connected iOS devices and convert those into GIFs—a super simple way to create simple app demonstrations.
Wherever you capture the animation, with filters and advanced features to adjust the size, speed and colors of your GIFs, GifBrewery can help you brew up your own GIFs the quick-and-easy way—no Photoshop required.
GifDeck
GIFs can be more than cats and movie clips…With GifDeck quickly convert a SlideShare presentation into a GIF. Just copy the url of the SlideShare presentation you want to animated, and voila, out pops an animated GIF. Change the speed, how many slides are displayed and the quality of the final output (ie, the size of the file).
makeagif
Upload your own pictures, or video, to create a GIF, or start with a YouTube video. Once you pick a video, simply set where to start the GIF, the duration (limited to 5 seconds without registering a free account) and the desired quality you want for the final output. Free to use, Makeagif will insert a small watermark at the corner of your image, which you can choose to remove if you register a free account.
Bonus tool: Makeagif also has their own Chrome extension, which among other things, embeds a button directly below any YouTube videos to quickly start the process of generating a GIF.
Gifs.com
While watching any YouTube video, simply click on the address bar and add “gif” in front of the YouTube url—and boom, easy gif-generating magic.
Simple sliders make it easy to customize your GIF—slide one to set the starting point, another for duration, and then add (and customize) captions. When ready, one click generates your new GIF which you can share directly or download.
EzGif
Crop, resize, change the speed, or optimize an existing GIF with EzGif—a free, advanced yet dead-simple online editor.
Imgur
A vast image discovery engine, Imgur now offers an easy way to create a gif in addition to uploading and hosting your other meme-y creations.
By pasting a video’s url into Imgur’s video to GIF creator. Not only does it handle YouTube, but hundreds of other video sites, including Vimeo. Drag to determine the exact starting position of the GIF, and how long you want the animation to last. Once the animation is rendered, you can then publish it to Imgur, download it or share it directly. Additionally, you can use Imgur’s editing features to crop, resize and rotate your animation.
Google Images
Through a simple hack (click search tools>type>animated), narrow the world’s most powerful image search to explore only animated images and discover GIFs from across the web.
Tumblr
The cool kids table at lunch, this is the place that revitalized the GIF into the reigning force it is on the modern, mobile internet. With a dedicated GIF discovery engine, you can find the perfect GIF to match your messaging and mood. Soon enough, you might just be sitting with the cool kids.
RecordIt
GIFs can be more than just fun and games. They are also a great way to share instructions or a quick demos with customers.
RecordIt makes capturing your screen easy and automatically converts the capture session into a GIF to make sharing simple and pain free for everyone involved. A free version of the simple utility is available for both Windows and Mac.
GifGrabber
Another app for Macs, Gifgrabber is a free utility for capturing any video on your screen and converting it into a GIF. Because you simply drag the tool, it’s great for capturing the exact portion of a video you want to gif-i-fy.