Facebook wants you to use a GIF as your profile picture

Your Facebook page is about to get a little more lively.

The social networking giant will now let you record a short looping video clip that can be used as your profile picture – just when you thought picking the perfect selfie was hard enough.

But thankfully, animated profile pictures won’t take up your entire newsfeed – the videos will only play if someone visits your profile page.

“Profile videos will let show a part of yourself you couldn’t before, and add a new dimension to your profile,” read a blog post announcing the new feature.

View image in full screen

In an effort to embrace how photo- and video-driven the social network has become, Facebook also announced it will now allow users to upload temporary profile pictures.

For example, if you want to use a #TBT from your childhood as your profile picture, you can now set that image to expire after a certain amount of time. Once it expires, your regular profile picture will automatically show up again.

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Facebook users will also be able to include a short one-line biography to their page as well, which will show up under their profile pictures.

The social network has made many changes to its platform over the last year, in an effort to stay competitive with rival social networks. The company, which owns the massively popular photo-sharing app Instagram, also noted that its users are sharing more photos and videos than ever before.