Use GIFs To Market Your Business! with Deanna Seymour

You can find Deanna Seymour at:
Website: https://deannaseymour.com/
Podcast: https://deannaseymour.com/blog/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedeannaseymour/
Coupon code: Win

Deanna Seymour Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day. And I am your host, Kris Ward. And today we have Deanna Seymour in the house, and it’s going to be an interesting conversation, something that might surprise you cuz it surprised me when I first started talking to her. I’m like, what? I don’t get this right, I didn’t get it. Deanna is going to be here to talk to us about, and under the umbrella.

[00:00:21] I guess you could talk about marketing and branding, but it’s really GIFs. G.I.F. Yeah, you heard me. Gifs. Those cute little thing. Gifs we’re gonna talk about gifs and I’m, you know what, let’s start, Deanna, tell me like, because you probably spent a lot of time explaining to people Yeah.

[00:00:37] Why this matters and how you can use it for your business and no. You didn’t misunderstand me, so I’m sure you’ve got experience on this. Start from the beginning. Why do we need gifs and how, and they listen. Sidebar hook, I’ll tell you about it at the end. We are using her tools and they’re amazing. So go ahead, start.

[00:00:56] Deanna Seymour: Ah, thank you. Thanks for having me. This is really fun. I love spreading. Like I love giving gifs a better wrap cuz I feel like people think of them as an afterthought or like a fun thing, but maybe not something that they need in their business. Which, I’m a rebel entrepreneur so I don’t usually say anybody needs anything.

[00:01:13] But gifs are really fun way to be well-branded, more visible, more shareable, cuz people can search for you and search in Instagram and use your gifs on their story. And so it’s really, I think, a really underutilized tool in the social media email marketing world.

[00:01:34] Kris Ward: Okay, so let’s back the truck up for a second. Here’s the thing, you’re right, I thought gifs were, when somebody texts me and then I reply back, here’s a happy birthday thing, or something funny in texting or whatever.

[00:01:45] Deanna Seymour: Yep.

[00:01:46] Kris Ward: So I thought, that’s it. Ha. I just, I did a funny look at me, right? and, but I didn’t, when you started talking to these, I’m like, oh, I don’t get this.

[00:01:54] So what’s happening is you’re talking about gifs. So we did sign up to your little program, crazy affordable. She’ll tell you about it at the end. Crazy affordable, right? And so we did sign up that, and I said to my team, let’s get on this because she’s gonna be in the show and I wanna be able to speak to this.

[00:02:08] So they just said, Kris, make a couple pictures with thumbs up, thumbs down, looking confused, whatever, headshots, and then a couple, one second videos, and then maybe gifs from that, which, so it’s not just about when you talk about gifs it’s like these are customized gifs that make, that are really eye-catching make me memorable.

[00:02:30] They’re funny. They’re, they’re on brand. There’s just so much you can do with this, but I didn’t know this was an option. I thought, here’s my gif to the ladies jumping up and down and cast of friends and I sent it to you. When I say, yay, you did good, right?

[00:02:43] Deanna Seymour: Oh my gosh, yes. That’s such a popular one. Isn’t it funny how some of them are so popular? It’s that is like the quintessential yay one is Phoebe and Rachel jumping.

[00:02:50] Kris Ward: Okay, so there we go. You talked to me about gifs and I’m like this is can be a short conversation. I like, what do you want me to have? Be on the show and talk about how to scroll and find good gifs in your phone.

[00:02:59] Like I didn’t understand. So this is a whole thing. A whole thing.

[00:03:03] Deanna Seymour: This is, we’re talking custom gifs and if you are feeling like, oh my gosh, that sounds like a lot. No, it’s not that much. But also I wanna say that you can use non-custom gifs to really connect with your audience as well.

[00:03:16] Like we can get to that if you want. I wanna talk about the custom ones. Cause I think those are really where the magic happens. Yeah. But yeah, they can be. , like instead of Phoebe jumping up and down, when someone signs up for your email list and they get redirected to that url and you don’t know what to put on that url, you wanna tell them to check, check your spam folder, make sure you click the confirm button.

[00:03:38] It can be a gif of you being like, Woohoo. Yeah. I’m so glad that you joined my email list, which, number one makes you look super cool cuz they’re like, whoa, she’s a gif like normally. Yeah, it’s like fancy pants. People in Hollywood that are gifs. Kris is a gif yet and that’s a gif. This is amazing.

[00:03:53] Yeah. And also it makes that connection, people are always talking about do reels because people wanna see your face and they wanna get connection, but that can be scary for people. So this is, like you were saying, it’s like a one second video. You can actually use a live photo if you have an iPhone.

[00:04:09] You know those live photos? Like that can get turned into a gif. So you don’t even have to talk, you don’t say anything. You just have to look excited. I have one for my 4 0 4 page on my website. So when people type in the wrong address and they go there, it’s me. Being like, ah, cred, what happened?

[00:04:25] But if it’s me. You know what I mean? So they’re like, who is this girl? She’s funny. What’s going on? And it, it’s magical cuz most people think that it’s gonna be famous people. And so it’s almost

[00:04:37] Kris Ward: Or in your case with the 4 0 1 page where it’s oh, something’s not working. It would just be like a little animated thing with X’s in their eyes.

[00:04:44] Yeah. And so that does make, and we remember that too, like sometimes when… you, I’ve logged into a website and something happens and they go, oh, do what? We don’t know why this broke. And you think, oh, that’s funny. Like they’re chatting with me like, they’re, we’re familiar with each other.

[00:04:58] Yeah. But hold on here for a second because I wanna back up your, I’m using this program. I think it’s fascinating, but you’re already still giving me tons of ideas that now the way I have it setup, anybody works with us. They know in the Winners Circle we teach you how to have your team take courses for you and then they can lay out in super toolkits.

[00:05:15] So you own the information. If they left tomorrow, it’s all set up. So my team took this course and then they just said, okay, yep, I need these pictures, whatever, but you did. And they took me all of three and a half minutes. Like here’s, because that’s a thing, a GIF is for it’s not meant to be polished and perfect, it’s just fun.

[00:05:31] He’s raw and ragged. . But what you’ve now pointed out too is they did have me do one that looked excited and stuff, but now I realize, oh, they could be looking at other gifs and saying, Kris, do this. Yeah, okay. I don’t look like Rachel, but I can jump up and down a clap like that and just do another gif of that so we could be spoofing off other gifts to give us ideas of activities that we could be doing in our own gift.

[00:05:53] Deanna Seymour: Absolutely. Yes, for sure.

[00:05:56] Kris Ward: Yeah. And let’s get to the really amazing part, which I thought was shocking, was these things are searchable.

[00:06:03] Deanna Seymour: Yes. So on GIPHY, you can go and search for things, but so there’s two ways that you can go on giphy.com to find, I find gifs all the time for, I put gifs in my email a lot, my emails, so sometimes it’s me, but sometimes it is, I wanna connect with people like, so they are like, oh my gosh, she’s watching that show too.

[00:06:21] I’ll get replies being like, oh my gosh, that. I did one once about a show called Search Party, which is a little random, but people were like, oh my gosh, I love Search Party. So I think you can either search the ones that are there, but you can also use the ones that you make. And so there’s two, two different types of gifs too.

[00:06:37] I think it’s important to say that one is more like a rectangle. Those are probably the ones that you’re texting. Or in Facebook, I feel like a lot of people will reply with the rectangle gifs. Okay. That’s like the Rachel and Phoebe jumping up and down. Okay. And usually it’s kinda like a meme, like there’ll be something at the bottom.

[00:06:53] Either it’s the quote from what the person said in the show or something else. So those ones are more like movie stills. And those are probably the ones that your team had you make the quick movies for.

[00:07:04] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:07:05] Deanna Seymour: Then there’s stickers. So stickers are what you can use in like Instagram stories and you can add them to your reels.

[00:07:12] So this is, these are ones that are like cutouts. So there’s like rules in GIPHY. So a sticker has to have so much of it being like transparent, like the background has to be transparent. It has to be cut out.

[00:07:24] Kris Ward: Hold on. But I just love one second. We’re not here to mess around people. There are rules in gifs.

[00:07:31] I know you think you’re just living a free life and doing stuff, but there are rules to be lived by in the gif world. So let’s…

[00:07:37] Deanna Seymour: There are rules. There are rules. So yeah, like those are the ones that you put up that say Sunday fun day, if you’re just making a story and you look and you say coffee cuz you wanna make a story that says Good morning and you do a little coffee mug on there, but you can make those branded to you.

[00:07:52] So when I had my first podcast, I found myself saying, oh my gosh, I love it all the time to people on my podcast. I love it. I love it. So I made a branded funny GIF sticker that said, I love it. So here’s the cool thing about that. It was in my font and my colors and my audience knew that was something I said, and I could stick that in my stories when I was talking about episodes, but also anyone who’s on Instagram searches, I love it.

[00:08:21] My gif could pop up and they could use that. So even cooler is that when you upload your GIF to GIPHY you can put a website like the originating, like where it comes from. So I always put deannaseymour.com. So when people go to GIPHY if they click through, they land on my website and they found me. Oh. So it doesn’t… that doesn’t really work in stories cuz it’s more just like pasting the thing in. But if people are searching on the GIPHY website, they could potentially click through to your website. So it is another place to link your website too.

[00:08:59] Kris Ward: Would it come up in Google searches like images?

[00:09:02] Deanna Seymour: It does. It does. Some of ’em do.

[00:09:04] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:09:04] Deanna Seymour: So there are like, and if you do it, they have stats and they have all this stuff and I think, I don’t wanna oversell myself, but I feel like I have definitely. I have millions of views. I don’t know if I hit the billion. That sounds too, like too much. I’m not really an analytics personally.

[00:09:19] I told you I was a rebel . No, I think

[00:09:20] Kris Ward: Ok. With the millions. Ok. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:22] Deanna Seymour: But I think so the more popular ones will actually show up in Google sometimes

[00:09:26] Kris Ward: Okay. I think you’re also a couple things. Now I, again, I’ve got more ideas is going one hand, things that I say all the time, like I always talk about that I’m a recovering Russia aholic.

[00:09:36] Cause I used to think speed was the way and I didn’t understand that you’re skimming over things, you’re, there’s no depth, you’re not getting stuff done. So a lot of the people I work best with are the go-to people person in their life, and they’re used to rushing and getting a lot done, but there’s still too much to get done.

[00:09:49] So I always say I’m a recovering rush aholic. So I could have giess that talk about being a recover, like have recovering rush aholic. But then so you could have things that sort of, you coined . And then you could also use like perhaps industry standard words that, like you said, that’s cool or whatever, when somebody’s keying that in is gonna come up. You can go general and you can go specific.

[00:10:11] Deanna Seymour: Yes. Yeah. And you can your book cover should absolutely be animated. Just wiggle it a little bit and make it a sticker. Oh. And when people buy your book and they’re sharing a story about it, and they search, Kris Ward, you know you can, and you can add multiple tags.

[00:10:26] So like all of my GIFs I put Deanna Seymour so that when I’m in Instagram, all I do is type in my name and all my gifs are there and I’m ready to paste them wherever I want. But yeah, like book covers, podcast covers. Like I love animating ones that say the podcast cover to new episode, podcast cover, new episode.

[00:10:44] Or when people do summits, like it’s really nice to have a lot of branded gifs for that because you have so many speakers talking about it and saying I’m gonna be at the summit. Or I’m talking at the summit, and they just search the name of the summit and pop it right in. So it’s really shareable.

[00:11:00] And again, I don’t think a lot of people like know about it. So it seems really cool. Whoa, this must be a really cool summit.

[00:11:06] Kris Ward: Yeah. It looks like you, I feel like I’ve built an app. I’m like, look at me. I look. Do you know how much money I spent? Yeah. And it’s like tens of dollars.

[00:11:15] Deanna Seymour: Yeah. , yeah, exactly.

[00:11:18] Kris Ward: Yeah. Okay, so then I don’t even know because my team is taking care of this. So would I have a list? Is it like URLs? Like I can pop them into my email, like clearly there’s more use that I even understood.

[00:11:29] Deanna Seymour: Yeah. I, what I like to do, I use Convert Kit, but I just save, you can go on to GIPHY and save them.

[00:11:36] As an image, but a gif image, and I just upload ’em right into Convert Kit. So they’re just right in there. Okay. Super easy. And that’s also what I do on my website, which I use show it for, but I’m sure any, I think they’re pretty universal at this point.

[00:11:47] Kris Ward: I got you now. Okay. Oh my gosh. Wow. I don’t even know how you fell upon this. Okay. I’m, I don’t even know enough to know what I don’t know. So you proceed .

[00:11:54] Deanna Seymour: I just, I’m trying to think of what else I need to tell you. I’m like, you’re sold everybody. Hopefully everybody listening is sold. The thing is, I think that there are different places let me talk about some places I think that are really easy to put the gifs that are like the most bang for your buck.

[00:12:11] Okay. I already said the 4 0 4 page. I think that is really memorable and I don’t know if people struggle like I do

[00:12:18] Kris Ward: Before four pages when, you land on your website, it’s not working.

[00:12:20] Deanna Seymour: Yeah. Which we, I was gonna say, I struggle with updating my website a lot and changing things a lot and I’m, if you’re newer, that could happen or whatever.

[00:12:27] Like it’s a little embarrassing if you have a broken link. So if you make it like a experience, it like, gets over that really fast. So I love that. I love putting them, like I said, on confirmation pages, so yeah, you’re signed up or. You joined the email list or you signed up for the webinar or whatever.

[00:12:43] That’s a great place where I think it’s important for them to see your face and you are saying, thank you. You are saying, I appreciate you and I you

[00:12:49] Kris Ward: And in a fun like dynamic pattern interrupt way, right? Really is crazy. Can, sorry, you’re giving me a list by, can we put them on TikTok videos?

[00:13:00] Deanna Seymour: Yeah, I, yeah. Okay. I’m okay. So it’s been a while since I’ve been on TikTok cuz I got okay upset and quit all the social medias. I got, I hit that overwhelmed point and was like, I’m off everything. So I only went back to Instagram, but, I would almost guarantee that you can search on GIPHY.

[00:13:15] Kris Ward: Okay. Gotcha. Perfect. Okay. All right. So and then, so go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:13:21] Deanna Seymour: I just wanna say the other place that I think is really cool to put them is in welcome sequences and emails. Like I’ve worked with a client who, you have all these forms on your website, like people apply to be on your podcast and you wanna send them something that’s I got your application and I’ll be back with you.

[00:13:35] So it’s like her being like us, thanks for applying or whatever. And we just went through and what your team did. I did for her. I just was like, I need an excited one. I want you to say, Cheers. Like her podcast, she does a drink of the week, so one of ’em, she’s cheersing and we just really made it her personality. And it was like super quick .

[00:13:53] Kris Ward: And you know what else I just realized too is for the clients in the Winners Circle, we work with people and help them get 25 hours back a week within the first month of working with us. And there’s certain things that people get so excited about the first time we help them get a VA or whatever the first weekend, they don’t work.

[00:14:09] Yeah. And so we made these little badges, we put all this little graphic into it and we’re like, oh my gosh, congratulations. It’s the first weekend. That you remember you weren’t working. So we give them these little milestone badges, but now A – they were designed by graphic designer. It would be so much more interesting for them to be gifs.

[00:14:27] Deanna Seymour: Yeah. Yeah. And if you have those files from your graphic designer, I’m all about being scrappy. You just take those, especially if you have a PNG file without a background. Okay. And you can easily just animate that to make it wiggle. And you brought up the course. So in my course, I just use Canva.

[00:14:43] I feel like so many people have, can you do have to sign up for Canva Pro. I like to say that because I have just used Canva Pro for so long. I don’t even know what it’s like to not have Canva Pro, but the clear background, like the transparent backgrounds and there’s a few things I, tools I use that you would need that upgraded account, but it’s just so easy.

[00:14:59] Like you just put it in there and you copy and paste it a couple times and wiggle it and download it and you’re good to go. And then, when your winners circles are on Instagram, taking a picture by the pool, cuz it’s their first weekend off. They search Kris Ward, Winner Circle, whatever they’re gonna search and then they put that sticker on there so that other people are like, wait, what’s the Winner Circle? I wanna be in the Winner Circle. What? What’s happening here? Yes, I know.

[00:15:21] Kris Ward: I barely have time to talk to you, Deanna. I have to go make more gifs. Okay. Yeah. And it is so funny too because when you first explained this to me, I’m like, yeah, I what you wanna come on the show and talk about what I’m, I don’t even get this.

[00:15:33] And so that must be your biggest obstacle is cuz you’re like, listen, you do not understand how cool this is and I’m gonna rock your world. Just gimme five minutes. Yeah. Because it really, I’ve never heard anything like this before at all. I don’t even, whatever. .

[00:15:44] Deanna Seymour: Ok. Lemme say one more idea.

[00:15:46] Kris Ward: Go ahead.

[00:15:47] Deanna Seymour: That said, , I’ve signed up for the blank challenge. If people are hosting a challenge or so, cuz you want people, like the whole idea on social media is for people to tell other people about your stuff. Can’t just be like, Hey, I want more people to, I mean you could ask your friends.

[00:16:00] I want more people to join. But you wanna get that like excitement up and you want people to just be sharing it cuz they’re excited. So when they have a sticker in Instagram to add to their story, that’s I just signed up for this challenge. Everybody who sees their stories oh, I wanna sign up for that chat.

[00:16:13] It, yeah, it just makes it more fun and more ch who didn’t have a sticker collection? I’m a kid of the eighties, so I’m like, who doesn’t love a sticker? And now it’s moving hello? It’s so fun. Yeah.

[00:16:23] Kris Ward: And we are using gifs and we do know that, if I think with my team, if they’re putting something, a clip from the podcast up on Instagram, they’re gonna grab a little gift with the microphone, make it vibrate and stuff like that.

[00:16:33] . We do know it adds some visual interest and it makes it different than the other stuff. So why not even have more fun with it and make it searchable and branded and really stand what, wait, is that Kris on? What . Yeah. How did she do that? Yeah, that it really does stop the scroll, so I think it’s fantastic. Oh my gosh. Okay. . So yeah, you’re just spreading the gospel on gifs .

[00:16:56] Deanna Seymour: I know. I love ’em.

[00:16:58] Kris Ward: Okay, so tell us, we got a couple minutes left. Tell us what else, what, is there anything else we need to know here?

[00:17:06] Deanna Seymour: Geez, I think we’ve like spit, we’ve like rapid fired. This, I just think, I just love, I just think I love a GIF because I do feel like there’s an underdog and I feel like hopefully people understand that it’s.

[00:17:18] Not just fun, but also fun is shareable, like things that are fun people are gonna share. So I just think that incorporating this into your brand is like, A no brainer. Plus it’s not hard to do . So

[00:17:32] Kris Ward: No, and I wouldn’t even call it the underdog. I’d call it the invisible dog. I just didn’t know.

[00:17:38] Deanna Seymour: It’s not even there.

[00:17:40] Kris Ward: It’s not even there. Like I was just like, yeah. Like I said, okay, I got Kermit the frog texting like a fool or pounding on the keyboards of the computer. I don’t even know what they’re called anymore, the typewriter. And you’re like, okay, that’s funny. And you put that. That’s another thing we didn’t even talk about.

[00:17:55] These could be coming out in my email, my weekly broadcast. Like you would put a GIF in that and like just, and you, I think you’re, so when I see, we know that stops the scroll. If I see an email or something and there’s a gif, you’re like, ah-ha. That’s funny, right? . So we know they work, and I curse myself half the time for not even using the mainstream ones to make my stuff more dynamic and interesting.

[00:18:16] Now, imagine if I add myself to it, like it’s just, it’s, success on top of success. Oh my God. Yeah.

[00:18:22] Deanna Seymour: You know what else too I should bring up is that if you go to my website, yeah. I couldn’t, I could not pick, I told you I’m a rule breaker, so I could not pick who I worked. What kind of online business owners do I work with?

[00:18:33] Are they energetic? Are they creative? Are they whatever? Witchy, I think is on the rebellious. So I made a gif scrolling through all these adjectives that described my ideal client, I guess you would say. Oh. And so it’s just really fun and punchy on my home, on my homepage, it’s all these different things like quirky, creative, like ethical, whatever, all these different adjectives of people I would love to work with.

[00:18:56] And so it says I’m a graphic designer for, and then the gif cycles through all these different words, online business owners. And so that is another fun place. Like where on your website? Could you, I cycle through some testimonials really fast, just short ones that people have written back, like when they get their graphics oh my god, I love ’em, or whatever. So I just made that a really fun one. So oh yeah, there could be ways.

[00:19:17] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. Quotes. You could be doing quotes Yes. As a gif you know.

[00:19:21] Deanna Seymour: For sure.

[00:19:22] Kris Ward: You pointing down what’s, and here’s the graphic with something like I get a lot, people are very generous, but they’ll say, Kris, like you literally changed my life.

[00:19:29] Cuz they got their life back. Yes. And so I get that a lot. And so that could be, me pointing at a quote like I some, you could even make something cute. Rolling your eyes. I hear this all the time

[00:19:39] Deanna Seymour: Yeah. I love the like heart hands too. Like I have one, I have a sticker that’s like me giving little heart hands so that it’s oh, I love this. Or if someone shares something of mine on Instagram, it’s oh my gosh, I love this.

[00:19:49] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh

[00:19:49] Deanna Seymour: It’s so fun.

[00:19:51] Kris Ward: It. Oh, okay. Alright. Alright, Deanna, where can we find more of your brilliance?

[00:19:57] Deanna Seymour: You can find me at my website on deannaseymour.com and I guess you’re listening to a podcast, so I have a podcast too that’s called EFF that Breaking the Rules of Online Business cuz I do that often, which is probably why I stumbled upon this wacky little way to get myself out there.

[00:20:12] But yeah, I love it. And I’m on Instagram if anyone wants to hit me up, I love chatting about all this stuff.

[00:20:17] Kris Ward: Okay. And I think, I don’t wanna put you on the spot, but I think you had sent me an email about Oh yeah, the coupon. Okay. Yes, go ahead.

[00:20:24] Deanna Seymour: Oh my gosh, what’s the coupon code? Oh, okay. Oh, win. The coupon code is win cuz it’s easy. And if it’s not win I’ll make it win.

[00:20:32] Kris Ward: No worries.

[00:20:33] Deanna Seymour: Hang up.

[00:20:33] Kris Ward: Okay, we’ll put it in the show notes. But listen her little GIF program is unbelievably inexpensive, like it’s tens of dollars people, and she is also giving you a big discount. So I’m telling you. Even if you’re her mother and you’re listening to this show, sign up, because…

[00:20:50] Deanna Seymour: Debbie, sign up. Just kidding. Yeah, I think it’s with the coupon code, it’s $25 is how much the course is, so you’re right, it’s, she’s not kidding. It’s super cheap, but I just want people to be out there making these things. So…

[00:21:00] Kris Ward: Yeah, it’s nuts. Like you can’t, you’re not like, and we don’t usually promote products or whatever, and I said that to you first.

[00:21:06] You’re like can I give cup coupon? And I’m like we don’t. Oh, it’s $25. Alright, .

[00:21:09] Yeah. We can, we can gift them that. Yes. Because it really is to their advantage. I can’t tell you. We just got, they went Deanna went through the course and then I did some pictures last week and so we’re just moving along on this course, so we haven’t even started to implement it and everyone’s so excited about, so I can’t wait.

[00:21:25] Deanna Seymour: I can’t wait to see ‘ em. Yeah. Fun.

[00:21:27] Kris Ward: We’re gonna find. All right, Deanna, thank you so much. We appreciate you.

[00:21:30] Deanna Seymour: Yep.

[00:21:30] Kris Ward: And everyone else will see you in the next episode.