Creating and sharing dynamic content that captures the moment is something that people working in sports marketing and sports media have been trying to do for years. Engaging with people through social media and mobile devices is crucial to a well-rounded marketing strategy, whether coming from a brand, team, league, or other entity.
And, in case you have yet to notice, the way young people are using mobile devices and consuming content is vastly different than what it was even five years ago. Enter Riffsy, a new GIF-based keyboard that allows users to communicate through short, expressive GIF-type images.
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“How do you reinvent video around a mobile device?” David McIntosh, CEO and founder of Riffsy, asked. “The inspiration for Riffsy came from two different directions. We looked at the emoji keyboard on the iPhone and iPad and saw that people clearly love to express themselves visually. The other thing was that when you look at video consumption, people want something they can watch quickly and not have to click on a link.”
When the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ launched a few weeks ago, so did new iOS software for the devices. Within the new iOS software came the ability for third-party apps to create custom keyboards, much like the current emoji keyboard many people use.
McIntosh and the Riffsy team — along with tons of user-created content — have since built a GIF keyboard that allows users to create their own GIFs and easily send them via messages to friends or post to social networks like Twitter. Initially, McIntosh said that he and the team did not recognize the technology’s perfect fit with the sports world.
However, once the Riffsy team put out a GIF collection surrounding the World Series (see the embedded GIFs below), they immediately realized how popular this could be in the sports world.
McIntosh quickly recognized the popularity of the GIF keyboard with younger people and millennials, seeing it as an opportunity to capitalize on the importance of sharing to the younger generation. Now that the Riffsy team has seen how popular and successful the idea can be when meshed with sports, he says there are plans to expand the technology further.
“Based on the success we’ve seen, we’re going to continue to create content like this throughout the rest of the series,” McIntosh said. “In the future, there is the chance to geo locate the GIFs and create collections specific to locations, colleges, or teams.”
Think about Snapchat’s our story feature that harnesses geolocation to crowdsource users’ pictures and videos into a single story. Similarly, Riffsy could aggregate all GIFs created in a certain location (i.e. a football stadium on gameday) and make them available to be easily shared amongst text messages and on social media. Teams could, theoretically, create premade collections of GIFs and short videos that fans could easily share throughout the game.
The simplicity of the technology also makes it very popular. Users can create their own GIFs, add text, or just search for a previously made GIF. They can then easily send them via a text message or post to social media. If a user posts it to Twitter, it works perfectly with Twitter to turn into a video that can be played within one’s timeline. That ease of integration is key as Riffsy continues to grow.
GIFs about sports have been widely popular for years, with people like Tim Burke from Deadspin, amassing a huge following due to timely GIFs from games. GIFs are often used for humor and resonate well with the “sports culture” of sorts that exists on Twitter. So far, Riffsy has also been widely popular. The app became the top 50 apps in the iOS app store within the first three days of launching and has held that position since. After Apple referenced it during the launch of the new iPhone, Riffsy has been a trending search term in the app store at least six times in the last two weeks. Perhaps best of all, once a user downloads the Riffsy keyboard, they are using it an average of nine times per day, according to McIntosh.
While Riffsy’s GIF keyboard is still very new, it definitely presents exciting possibilities moving forward for those working in sports and looking for deeper engagement with a younger audience. The customizable GIFs are a truly unique way to express emotion, and they fit in well with sports.
Preston McClellan is a marketing coordinator at Navigate Research in Chicago and a contributor for Sporting News, writing about sports business. Connect with him on Twitter at @p_mcclellan and join the dialogue.