What can your brand do with a simple six-second video that’s shot with a cell phone camera?
Quite a bit, actually. Simple can be good.
Twitter transformed the world using hashtags and 160 characters. Dr. Seuss wrote one of the most successful children’s books of all time with a mere 50 words. Nike created one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time with only eight words.
Enter Vine, the new mobile app that lets users upload six-second looping videos. Think of it like a video mixture between a tweet and an Instagram picture. The brevity is the appeal. In a world where digital attention spans are short, Vine challenges you to tell your story in six seconds or less. And honestly, why can’t you?
When Vine came out in January of 2013, the first question on most marketer’s minds was how they should leverage this emerging tool into something useful. When all the dust had settled, it seems like there are many creative and interesting ways that Vine can be used to produce stimulating and effective content. Here are six simple strategies that can help you create engaging Vines right away:
1. Shamelessly flaunt your brand
Businesses and brands have the ability to humanize themselves through social media. Vine videos are just another way to show what your brand is all about. It doesn’t have to be complex: something as simple as an office tour can emphasize company culture and employee cohesion. The most important aspect here is that your brand is on display for the world to see.
If you’re a B2C brand, creating a product-oriented Vines are especially powerful. Show a woman modeling a new hat right before a summer music festival like Coachella, for example.
2. Use video looping to your advantage
One of the biggest strengths of Vine videos is the fact that they play on a continuous loop after the user clicks on it. So while the video itself is only six seconds, the continuous loop gives viewers the ability to watch the video again and again without clicking a single button.
Consider a Vine video that has a twist ending. The viewers might watch your video again to see what they missed the first time around. This is the same way a optical illusion makes you “double check” what you saw.
Or you could create a video that asks viewers to locate something within the video to receive a special offer. “Find our logo in this Vine video and we’ll send you 20% off your next order!” A challenge like this will make the viewer to watch your video until they solve the visual riddle.
3. Company event coverage
Rather than tweet that you’ll be attending a conference or event, make a quick Vine video that shows your presence there. Include signs of the event, where your booth is located, freebies at your giving away, etc.Check out a Vine of Location3′s latest trip to the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Denver to cook a meal for parents of kid’s receiving medical treatment:
4. Let your users do the work for you
Vine can also be an effective way of starting a campaign centered around user-generated content. ASOS asked their customers to make vine videos of themselves unboxing their new products. Botkier challenged their customers to show them what they keep in their purse.In both cases, these brands used Vine to create excitement and brand loyalists by asking them to be a participant in their campaign.
5. Give them a little taste
Are you releasing something new? If so, use Vine to give a sneak peek. Vine will provide visual content to increase the anticipation of its arrival. Use Vine to create short previews that link back to longer videos or more detailed information.
The same way movie trailers can create excitement for upcoming blockbusters, and free samples make you consider buying a new product in the supermarket, Vine videos can create anticipation and interest in larger pieces of content.
6. Measure twice, Vine once
At Location3, we focus on findability and performance. So naturally we needed a way to measure how viewers are interacting with Vines. Thankfully, there is a free service, Simple Measured, that provides you with analytic reporting about who is driving the most engagement and where they’re located.