As a company with a thriving social media presence (more than 10M fans worldwide), it makes sense for Great Big Story to use GIFs as an entryway into the cultural zeitgeist. And, with an abundance of compelling characters integrated into its video storytelling, the opportunity to extend the emotional staying power to the masses seemed like a no brainer. Having a GIPHY presence exposes Great Big Story's logo and content to new audiences, while simultaneously offering the social currency for those audiences to express their feelings at any given time on any platform where GIFs can be displayed. In addition, uploading GIFs allows Great Big Story to promote its content organically across its own properties in a new way (beyond static images).
Using GIFs strengthens the connection fans have with the brand's characters and exposes new people to undiscovered personalities. Not every video lends itself to a GIF, but when a particularly strong character reaction is captured on camera, a light bulb goes off in the minds of Great Big Story's social publishing team. Once a video is published online, the team takes both a proactive and reactive approach: proactive, in that they analyze the video, isolate expressive reactions, and then publish the GIF on GIPHY; and reactive, in that they identify pertinent trends, study hashtags and analyze verbiage on GIPHY (and social media) to cut GIFs based on what's trending.
Since August of 2017, Great Big Story has seen a measurable lift in audience engagement with its GIFs. Over the past several months, more than 200 million views have been generated on less than 120 GIFs. Great Big Story's "Turn up" GIF has garnered over 100 million views on GIPHY, and it's been recirculated by major brands including BET. Additionally, GIFs have become a meaningful educational resource to help producers learn how to capture certain camera shots and styles in the field when sending video is not an option.
