Sometimes prospects don’t have the time to sit through a 2 minute video at work, or found your ad image compelling enough to stop scrolling and take action. If videos and still images aren’t working, what should you do?
Well Facebook think it has the answer with cinemagraphs.
What is a cinemagraph?
A cinemagraph is a fancy marketing word used for a GIF file. Cinemagraphs are moving images with one big difference they are of superb quality and contain fewer moving parts than most gifs.
Typical gif images you see on websites and forums tend to be very scruffy, poorly made and sometimes take a long time to long.
Cinemagraphs are high quality still images with one or two moving parts. Here’s a few examples:
Source: Trip Wire Magazine
Pretty cool right?
Can you use them for adverts?
At this moment in time there is no bespoke cinemagraph ad objective, although I expect that to change in 2016 if you listen to the online rumours. You can use them in regular Facebook posts however.
Earlier in the year Instagram updated their ad objectives to allow videos to play in a constant loop, which has seen brands like General Motors use cinemagraphs pictures to serve posts to their fans using the video ad objective (you can view it here).
Videos or cinemagraphs?
Nobody enjoys a newsfeed full of adverts, even more so when these adverts are videos that play automatically as you scroll down your newsfeed. If someone is listening to music on their mobile device while on Facebook, the song cuts out and the advert starts, or if at work the last thing they want is for music and other sounds to be blasting from their computer.
Don’t get me wrong, video ads are great but when they auto play it can annoy your audience, and has come under a bit of scrutiny from major publications.
Cinemagraphs look more elegant, are way less intrusive and if done right they are highly hypnotizing. They don’t force to gain your attention like a video which has many moving parts, cinemagraphs are more subtle and less direct.
How to create cinemagraphs for Facebook
You’ll need some decent recording equipment to create highquality cinemagraphs. Flixel is one of the biggest names in the business who offer various online tools that allow you to create your very own cinemagraphs for Facebook.
If their services are a little above your budget, you should look at hiring freelancers on sites like Upwork who can create some for you.
Summary
While there’s no direct ad objectives for cinemagraphs adverts just yet, you can upload them on your Facebook Page and they’ll work seamlessly. Cinemagraphs Community Page has several awesome examples of wonderful cinemagraphs images.
Will you be using cinemagraphs in 2016?
Nick Bridges
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