Why Brands Use Twitter’s Vine For Video Marketing (Infographic)

Marketers that see this infographic, will understand why brands use Twitter’s Vine in their video marketing strategy.

As Om Malik, the famous web and technology writer from GigaOM stated:

“Just as movies were different from Broadway and Television shows were different from feature films, every form of online media is also different”.

So the question for marketers is: Why should they include Vine in their video marketing?

And if they do, how should they be using Vine?

Infographic: Using Vine in your Video Marketing Strategy

Since CMOs like benchmarks, this infographic by The 7th Chamber shows the best brands on Vine, and how they are using the six-second video sharing platform owned by Twitter:

What you should know about Vine by Twitter?

Vine did not launch so fine in January 2013. But Twitter improved its service rapidly and now Vine, with over 40 million users, is serious competition for Instagram and Pinterest.

Besides the fact that consumers love to use Vine, several leading brands have been using it to fuel their awareness and engagement. A great example?

Airbnb: Hollywood & Vines

Vacation rental service Airbnb recently crowdsourced Vine clips to create a short film. The selected Vines are featured on the Sundance Channel, and winners get a $100 Airbnb coupon. See the promo here:

In the world of micro-video marketing, Vine is not the first player. Do you remember Tout?

Shaq O’Neal & Tout

Tout, the 15-second video network was launched in April 2010 and it gained popularity in June 2011 when basketball player Shaquille O’Neal used the service to announce his retirement.

Early in 2012, Tout had already 12 million visitors. But it’s certainly fair to ask if Tout’s growing social video network with 20+ million users, can withstand competition from Twitter’s Vine with now 40+ million users.

I might believe in second-mover advantage here. Certainly because Twitter has 400 million active monthly users, and Tout started from scratch, without the back-up of a global leading interest network.

So if the infographic convinced you to embed Vine into your video marketing strategy, here are 5 tips to create successful Vine videos:

1. Always use hashtags
2. Create ‘how-to’ video content
3. The distribution strategy is key to success
4. Craft content to match the call-to-action
5. Be very creative

My Opinion

Vine makes me think about the famous quote by Tyler Durden, from the movie Fight Club:

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”

I agree with Tyler that by its nature brand advertising has always been: Interruptive, distracting, selfish, one-way mind-jacking.

So why are CMOs of leading consumer brands now massively embracing the power of online video and Vine?

Because most CMOs now do understand that there is a big difference between old and new media.

That the internet is uncontrolled and offers people global recognition and trust. People can scale their ideas and share them with the community of people with the same passion.

With the help of apps like Vine, online videos can become powerful weapons of mass affection that can extend reach and engagement massively.

The crowd shines a light on the brilliant ones among us and desire (social status) does the rest: there are so many people out there that would like to reach their global community of like-minded peers.

Participation is crucial, being part of the phenomenon is also the key driver to gain crowd accelerated innovations. But it takes the DNA of a social business to leverage these insights.

So Vine in your marketing strategy? Yes sir, smart choice!

But make sure you respect the rules of engagement of the target audience.

What About You?
How do you use Vine for branding? And which brands have used Vine clever? Let us know in the comments below.

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About the Author
Igor Beuker was CMO at 3 listed companies, chairman at the IAB, jury member at Webby, AMMA and Esprix awards, founder of 3 digital agencies (sold to WPP) and global Chief Social Officer at Mindshare. Now he is freejack consultant and still a sought after keynote speaker.