Why Vine Videos Will be Most Successful For Businesses

By: Olivia Sullivan & Derek Lawton

Vine is a widely known video-sharing app founded in 2012. Vine has been able to attain a competitive advantage by being purchased by Twitter; this allows a vine to spread fast. It enables users to create and share short videos of up to six seconds. The app allows you to start and stop filming so quickly that you can create stop-motion-effect by just a touch of a finger. Currently, Vine has 40 million users and more than 100 million people view Vine each month. Vine is a cutting edge new application that will revolutionize marketing and communication for brands.

Vine has features that allow users to post and share short creative videos, as well as edit them to their liking. Users can see what other people post, share, and even videos they like. This allows users to customize their videos and share them with friends, family, and people around the world. Not only do users gain attraction from current followers, they also gain free publicity when followers tag their friends, or hashtag a word to share their products.

Vine is used not only to share videos with people, but many companies use Vine to advertise their products. With attention spans beginning to lower and creativeness rising, Vine is one of the most effective ways to market a product. People like to see what the product looks like and the features before buying. By companies posting videos of products, promotions, or services, they allow viewers to see what they offer and put the products or services in front of the specific audience they want to reach.

Although Vine is a creative way to get people’s attention, is it enough time for marketers to get their point across? Six-second clips are the perfect length for a brand to keep the customers attention and still create awareness. Marketers can segment by geographic areas based on the user’s location, which will bring out more views from watchers. Vine’s flexibility provides a marketing tool that will complement and enhance a company’s marketing efforts. As mentioned earlier, Twitter purchased Vine, so Vine videos gain more awareness because they can be retweeted. More people have Twitter accounts so the Vine will be sent around faster and seen by different types of people, age groups, or businesses. Along with being creative Vine has the ability to grab someone’s attention without them getting bored or distracted. This is a major issue when trying to market a product. No business wants their commercials to be clicked away from; they want them to grab people’s attention.

Vine is a successful marketing tool because many people get bored seeing commercials, or they tend to get distracted because of how long they are. Most of the time when people watch television, they skip through commercials because they do not want to watch them. The commercials end up being the same advertisement over and over again, so this wastes a company’s money because no one is actually watching their commercial. With Vine, a company can come up with many different videos to display because the videos are only six seconds and do not cost anything to display. This generates a bunch of little ideas that you can make into a video, rather than into a big commercial. The attention span for people has gone down to seven seconds so Vine seems to be the perfect “commercial” or advertisement. Also, new and upcoming marketers are from a generation in which videos and pictures are more effective than words on a screen. No one likes to read articles or newspapers anymore. Even Instagram videos seem to be too long, and they are only fifteen seconds.

Just like many other social media sites, Vine provides users with an explore page. This page is really important because you can search Vines using the account name or hashtags. The explore page also has different categories when thinking about what types of vines you want to watch (for example, comedy, music, gaming, animals, etc). This is good for businesses because they can make a specific Vine that will be easy for a consumer to find. Providing hash tags will also get more people to watch your video. The explore page also shows trending tags, meaning tags that are popular at the moment and show up first. Businesses can also tag their location, which will generate more views.

Vine is all about being creative and that is the meaning of marketing today. How can Vine come up with a way to market something that will be interesting to watch? Vine provides marketers with many tools to edit their videos and many ways to reach their target markets. Vine’s original features included a like and comment button, but they finally installed a ‘revine’ button. Just like retweeting, a Vine can be ‘revined’, which will increase views and awareness. Vine has added multiple new features since it first came out, and that has enhanced the app. Their new features are: their online site where you can watch videos if you cannot access them on a smartphone; the front facing camera so you do not have to turn your hand or have someone record you; new editing tools that provide more ways to get creative; the ability to upload videos from the camera roll; and many more improvements.

There are many advantages of trying to use Vine to market a product, but there are also things businesses need to worry about. Even though people’s attention spans have lowered, are marketers going to have enough time to present their product in six seconds? This is what every business worries about. Marketers might not be able to make their information simple enough for that short of a time. Vine may not be the right marketing tool for a professional business because anything can be put on Vine. Consumers may come across inappropriate content that could make them shy away from a product, or not want to use Vine at all. Vine has changed the age limit for this reason and they also allow user to be private.

The users of this app range from 18-30 years old and it is used by both men and women. There are many “famous” accounts on Vine and those people are called “Viners”. Businesses should take advantage of a viners skill and have them market their product on their profile. That way a company’s brand will get out into the world. This way, if a business has no experience using Vine, they can have someone make one for them, which can also be displayed on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Tapping into the 1% of a platform’s most popular users could mean getting your brand or product exposed to millions of individuals. Virgin Mobile USA teamed up with Brandon Calvillo, a famous viner, to promote “Virgin Mobile Freefest 2013”.

Marketers are starting to use Vine because they can show their products in action. This is helpful for consumers because they want as much information as they can get on a product before they buy it. This will increase the brand’s awareness because people can post themselves using the product on Vine with a hashtag. Vine is also used by marketers to promote themselves and engage with their customers. Businesses can come up with contests, give coupons, or other rewards for making a video about their products and using hashtags.

Many different businesses are using Vine to market their products. For example, Sephora uses Vine to show “How to” videos about makeup application. Dunkin Donuts uses Vine to show the creative possibilities Vine has to offer and how much can be accomplished in a short amount of time. Also, the way the Vine is presented is a reflection of the brand. The weather channel used Vine to show a ‘behind the scenes’ view of their office. They recognized that their customers may want to learn more about the inner workings of their business and its people. Lowe’s made a DIY, do it yourself, vine about using coffee filters to keep soil where it belongs. DIY vines are also a way businesses market their products and that is another category on the explore page. Creating content that makes that possible can be an effective way to engage and build your audience.

Vine has created a new way for customers and businesses to interact. Businesses are able to create an interesting video and share it on multiple social media sites. For example, they create a Vine, which takes seconds, and by touch of a button it can appear on Twitter. This video can be retweeted as well as ‘revined.’ Vine is becoming a great marketing technique because you are able to catch consumers attentions without them getting distracted or bored.

Vine has truly evolved into one of the leading social media apps despite its competition with Instagram. Vine is continuing to change more and more lives everyday, but if Vine wants to continue to be one of the leading social media apps they are going to have to continue to come up with new ideas.  Vine has always found ways to target more audiences and users. The six second video is great, but giving consumers more options such as photos, compared to only videos, will be a good thing for Vine. Vine is going to have to become less of an entertainment app and become used more to promote business. Many businesses have used Vine in the past, but many have overlooked its abilities.  At this point, Vine is here to stay. Vine has given its users a presence on the platform, and it will continue to give these opportunities to a lot of new talent to be discovered. What’s cool about Vine is that there is new talent emerging every moment. I’m excited to see the continued development of Vine and the impact it will have on society in the future.

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