Should your business use Vine? Part 1

It's a simple question, and there's never a clear cut answer.

Keeping up with new forms of social media usually tells your clients that you are up to date, and keeps you in the 'cool' books. But what can you use it for?

Before we even consider whether or not you should, let's take a look at what  Vine is. Very simply put, it is an app that gives you the ability to upload a 6 second video. Now there are already multiple video apps that have been out for quite a while, which may seem to have a number of advantages over Vine; mainly having a more established user base (some users on Viddy and Keek already have 200k+ followers), and giving you longer to record (15 seconds on Viddy and 36 on Keek). But what separates Vine is two very important factors:

1- It embeds right into your twitter feed, and shows the video without having to click any external links. That's a pretty powerful factor considering a lot of videos may be missed due to a non-clicked-thru.

2- Vine videos can be shot either one full stream or can be divided up into multiple segments, some as short as a fraction of a second. This ability alone puts Vine on a whole different level - with this functionality, you are now looking at creatively using your video for a lot more than just a quick shoot. You can show clients a quick preview of your 3-room office in 6 seconds, rather than take a whole walk-through that may push your video upto half a minute. That time saving factor may entice people to watch a video rather than, say a 30 second video. Consider this as the same concept that made reading ten tweets a much more appealing read than 10 blog posts.

So is Vine right for your business? It does have it's limitations, mainly the time factor, but that in itself is also a strength. If you can grab a users attention in 6 seconds, you're onto winning gold. We'll discuss more on how you can use Vine for your business (or promoting your personal blog, ebay items, etc) over the next few days.