What Vine is and why you should use it for your business
If you are a young and urban to a certain level, you must have heard about Vine. You might not be using it, but some of your friends surely do. Now, if you have teenage children, they are possibly using it and you most probably have no idea what Vine is.
Vine is to video what Twitter is to writing. Most accurately, Vine is a short video sharing social platform, very similar to Twitter’s microblogging identity. Its similarity with Twitter doesn’t end there. Vine is also completely owned and run by Twitter. It was bought in 2012, before its launch. Not only that, Vine and its services have been incorporated into Twitter and its services completely.
It is very similar to what Facebook did with Instagram, except Twitter has stronger control over Vine’s management and content. The Vine app is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry, making it omnipresent. Vine even has an Xbox app, delivering to the gamers.
Now, we all know that social networks are real gold mines and that investing in the right startup or acquiring the right service is the only way of surviving and growing. Twitter has done just that. By acquiring Vine, they attracted more of the most wanted target audience, teenagers aged 12 to 18, as well as young adults. And that made them “cooler” in the eyes of the general public.
Which translates into more advertisers, and that leads to increased income. As easy as that. The success of Vine has been so big and unexpected, at least in the beginning, that Instagram has introduced video uploads as a reaction to Vine’s popularity.
But what do these vines look like? They are just 6 seconds in duration, but can still be a very potent way of expression. Mostly, vines are comedic, or try to be. Those are usually the most popular ones, or the ones with the most loops.
Also, there are types of vines that try to be artistic and look like they were taken from an architect’s Instagram. Some vines are clever and serious, although not very numerous. Other vines are similar to duck-face selfies, only lasting 6 seconds. There are also video documentations of drinking and driving, as well as high-school students embarrassing themselves.
The most somber use of Vine was reporting during the protest due to suicide bomb attack on the US Embassy in Turkey.
But the Internet wouldn’t be what it is today if there weren’t for cute animal video.
Some people have even become Vine celebrities. Just like YouTube’s Jenna Marbles, these internet celebrities can actually make money off of their vines. There are also real-life celebrities, like Snoop Dogg, Tyler the Creator and Kate Upton that post vines. It is one of the best ways of staying popular with the most critical crowd there is, teenagers on the Internet.
One of the most interesting things about it, though, is that even the White House has its vine account. The Obama administration has been the most Internet-present governments and probably has one of the best PR teams who closely follow and predict the trends with young people, their possible voters. This is one of the many ways to stay in touch with younger voters.
So, clearly, if the White House can use Vine, businesses can too. They just need to figure out a way to stay interesting and appealing all the time, which is not that easy. Some companies have entire teams working on their Vine presence.
Big retailers like Gap, French Connection, Burberry and Puma are all present on Vine. Their videos are hip and youth-orientated. Bacardi, Oreo, Dove and Volkswagen are also praised for their online presence and skillfulness in producing their vines.
It is not a regular commercial. People get hyped about some of their videos. Those videos get shared, or revined, and they reach a big number of loops. What’s most interesting is that this approach is not found to be aggressive marketing, since the people themselves did the sharing.
Vine has proven that it can be a clever marketing platform, and that it can deliver content at the same time, which is something that many social networks have been trying to do, and failing.
If you are trying to reach a certain target audience, and you think you can deliver something that would be considered funny, clever and enjoyable in 6 seconds or under, try it out. Maybe you will have a big breakout and own the world for longer than 6 seconds.
Also, if you are trying to expand your business’s Internet presence, maybe you should hire someone to make content-rich vines for you. With traditional advertisement being hated by the teenagers, moving on to the less orthodox method could prove to be a success.
You just need to find your business’s vine voice. What do you want to be perceived as?
