Facebook initially didn’t want to do anything with GIFs for fear of making the site look messy and cluttered. Seeing how they adopted them everywhere else, Facebook had no real choice to join them and start playing nicely. If you want to post a GIF on Facebook, you can. Here’s how.
Love them or hate them, GIFs are everywhere. Most are lame or just dumb but a few can be really smart. If you’re into GIFs and want to share them everywhere, you can. Posting a GIF on Facebook isn’t as easy as it might be, though.
What is GIF?
GIF is a Graphics Interchange Format image. It is not always a single image, but can also be a series of frames encapsulated within a single image file. Therefore, they can contain animations as the container repeatedly plays the frame sequence to achieve the intended effect. Technically, a GIF file is a static image and an animated file is an Animated GIF, but we refer to both types as GIF files.
Sending GIFs on Facebook
Not so long ago, you had to create a GIF file on your device, upload it to Giphy or Imgur or elsewhere, and link it to your Facebook post. Although in some cases you have to do this, Facebook now supports GIFs and can host them directly on the page.
To add a GIF to a post or comment:
- Compose your post or comment as usual.
- Select the small gray GIF icon in the input box.
- Choose from trending GIFs or search for one in the search bar at the top.
- Select to add.
Lots of pre-selected trending GIFs are available inside the selection box. Scroll down the box to see more, the list seems endless. Otherwise, add your search term to the top box to find a more suitable one.
Posting a GIF to your status on Facebook
If you want to use a GIF in a status update on Facebook, you still have to do it the old-fashioned way. This means creating or uploading a GIF to a third-party site and linking to it in your status update. It will not take long.
Go to a site like Giphy or Imgur and find a GIF. In this example I will use Giphy.
- Find a GIF you want to use in your status update.
- Select Copy Link to the right of the GIF.
- Select Short Link and copy it.
- Paste it into your Facebook status update.
- Edit if you want and add any comments.
As soon as you add the link, the GIF should appear in your update. Then you can remove the short link from within the post if you don’t want it to show and the GIF should stay in place.
Create animated GIFs on Giphy
There are thousands of GIFs that express pretty much any situation or emotion imaginable. If you can’t find one that sums up the situation perfectly, you can create your own. It’s pretty simple to do, even if Giphy itself doesn’t make it that clear.
- Find an image or video you want to use and upload it to the GIF creation page from there. If you want to make an animated GIF, you will need a set of images to create the animation.
- Order the images to create the animation you’re looking for.
- Add a period of time so the GIF knows how long to run before looping.
- Add a title, effects, tags or whatever you want to the series.
- To do this, select Create GIF.
- Edit and review your GIF before sharing.
You can use a video section if you want, upload the video to Giphy, set the start time and duration of the first frame of the GIF. Timing to complete the loop at exactly the right time may take some work, but it’s not hard. Then complete the above process by adding any titles or tags before saving.
Once done, use the Short Link above to share it on Facebook or wherever you want.
Sending GIFs on Facebook is a lot easier than it used to be, but considering it’s Facebook, it’s not always as easy as it could be. Now at least you have an idea of how to do it.
Do you know any other ways to post a GIF on Facebook? Are there any neat tools for creating animated GIFs? If you do, tell us below.
