Will A GIF Search Button Get People Excited About Twitter Again?

You may have heard the noise this week about Twitter and the fact their user growth has stalled, with monthly active users dipping from 307 to 305 million between the third and fourth quarters of last year for the first time. Even the integrated marketing campaign Twitter launched last year, including their first ever television ad, failed to attract new users.

So in an attempt to foster more “stickiness,” and bring a younger demographic to their platform again, today Twitter launched GIF search into its social network.

As you can see from the above demo, using the GIF search feature is very straightforward. Clicking the GIF button means you can pick from preset categories or search for a relevant GIF to express yourself beyond the typical 140 characters. Direct messages will also now support GIFS.

The search engine is powered by a partnership with Giphy and Riffsy, who are very established in the Gif game already with their own Gif-sharing apps.

Twitter are hardly breaking new ground with their Gif search engine – both Tinder and Slack have a similar feature set that is powered by Giphy.

So will the GIF search bring users back to Twitter? It’s too soon to tell, but expect to see a lot more animated cat playing piano GIFS in your Twitter feed shortly.

John Wood

John is a tea-drinking, 43-year-old (not old, just well-seasoned) digital marketer who remains intensely curious about new ways to market online. He believes the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing, it is about telling stories that resonate enough with people that they want to do business with you.