Digital Marketing Pushes with Vine

To utilize all aspects of social media for digital marketing purposes, companies should first become familiar with the many different and popular social media apps there are currently available. Facebook is pretty much a no-brainer with few restrictions – marketers can use all links, videos, pictures, and texts posts that they have in their arsenal. Twitter is slightly trickier. With only 140 characters available to get your message across, planning must be done ahead of time to determine what the message is, how it is said, if it will include a link offsite that will better explain the tweet, what hashtags it will include, and so on.

But what about new social media apps that have taken off like wildfire? How can your company take advantage of their popularity while relaying just the right marketing message?

Vine is just one of those social media apps. Owned by Twitter, the app allows users to create six-second videos that can be shared on the app itself and many other social media sites. The app was created in January 2013, and as of this month, it has 40 million registered users, the majority of whom are teens and twenty-somethings. In some cases, it may be a detriment to not take advantage of the social power of Vine.

If you’re a Vine beginner or have yet to even download it, here are some tips to create a Vine following:

Have a plan – When you’ve only got six seconds, every millisecond counts. Treat Vine videos as any other marketing enterprise, and ask yourself:

• Who will be watching this?
• What do you want your audience to do after watching? (I.E., click a link? Watch the next Vine for more information? Laugh? Share the content?)
• Why would they watch it?

Essentially, your Vine should effectively both show and tell your audience about an idea, product, or service that still makes sense in a six-second timeframe.

Brainstorm – Other than the six-second time limit, being creatively inventive enough to stand out is another difficult factor. With the millions and millions of videos circulating through the internet, making a video that stands out or has the potential to go viral can be quite a challenge.

• Determine what the subject of the video will be. People? Animals? Inanimate objects? Can you incorporate specific products into your story?
• Create a story and decide how that story will be filmed. Is it one continuous shot? Multiple frames?
• Utilize each second to the best of your abilities. Knowing what you want to achieve before you hit record will save you wasted time and energy.

Hashtag – Once your Vine is finished, be sure to add the correct hashtags to reach the audience you intend to reach.

Marketers can also encourage involvement from their audience by asking them to create content around their brand. Adding on rewards for best video can entice users and pool creative content.

New marketing tools aren’t scary; they just take a bit of practice. Each social media platform is simply marketing structures broken down: Twitter is a micro-blogging tool, Vine is a micro-storytelling tool, Instagram uses photos, and so on. Like all social media marketing pushes, success is measured by the created content and how well it meshes and supports your primary marketing efforts.