Vine is a short-form video sharing service, built by Twitter, where you can create and share 6-second looping videos filmed on mobile devices. The simplicity of the design and easy functionality have made Vine a tough contender among its competition. Vine’s users are about 57% women and the app is most popular with 18-20 year olds. It currently has about 200 million active users.
The connection between Twitter and Vine is tight. Vine videos can be shared easily to Twitter, and they embed quite smoothly right into a Twitter stream. The audiences that seem most primed to consume Vines are those who spend time on Twitter or Tumblr, two of the best short-form networks out there. This is a bit of a one up for Vine over some other app like Snapchat.
Brands have found some creative ways to put Vine video to use, coming up with smart how-to videos and short films. Urban Outfitters, MTV Style, Rolling Stone, General Electric and Adidas are just a few of the brands that were early adopters of Vine.
So let’s talk about how to make Vine a part of your social media marketing strategy. First of all, as usual, it is important to create new, unique and relevant content to Vine specifically. Users are savvy and they don’t like to see content re-purposed. It should have a similar theme so that your content and message resonate, but it should not be the exact ads you use on Facebook , Adwords, or elsewhere. You also need to make sure that Vine users are in your target demographic. Do some detailed research to figure out who your potential clients are and where they live online.
When it comes to marketing on Vine, make sure to pick one point to focus on. With only 6 seconds, you’ll dilute the message if you try to cover more. In other words, KISS, or Keep It Simple, Sweetie. Vine is not the medium for communicating complex concepts, save those for other social networks. Instead, use Vine for unboxings, teasers, and sneak peaks. And like Twitter, you can use hashtags in order to tag your content to other similar posts.
Don’t create videos for a private audience. Vine is public to everyone who wants to watch the videos, and they can share the Vine video on other social media platforms and send the videos around to other groups. That means it’s important your videos are appropriate for anyone to consume, even if they can’t really “use” the information in it.
Vine provides a natural opportunity to humanize your brand. You can do this by featuring snapshots of your company’s employees, whether at work or at play. Customer loyalty increases in brands that a client can relate to. In order to do that, take down your walls and show the behind the scenes of your company. Vine is a perfect platform for 6 second videos of what is going on around the office.
Another way to humanize your brand is to use Vine for real-time customer service. You can use it to answer short direct questions that people have submit and then direct viewers to an FAQ page.
Is Vine a good fit for your company? Keep in mind that with Vine, companies have the ability to capture and share life in motion. If used correctly, this 6 second video app can be highly effective for promoting and enhancing your company’s social media presence.
