Should your business use Vine? Part 3

Before you know it, there will be tens of thousands of new Vines every day posted by random users - some will be great, some will be horrible, and some will just be plain forgettable  We'll try and cover some aspects to make your Vine stand out in the first category. Let's take a look at the Vine format:

- 6 seconds of video
- Audio is included
- You can record segments as short as a fraction of a second

The first thing you need to consider is the message you are trying to get across. This needs to be cut down and kept as short as possible, for example:

Your business is celebrating its 10 year anniversary, opening a new store, and offering scratch and win cards to every customer who buys something, where you can win cash-back on your purchases, electronics, and with the top prize being a car.

Too long for Vine. Let's cut this down to the basics; Shop in our new branch, win a car. That's all that really needs to be said here. This could be shown by filming the new store entrance with a large NOW OPEN sign, a customer inside has an excited sales attendant running to him, hands him a key, customer drives out with a brand new car wrapped up in a ribbon.

This can realistically be fitted into Vine's 6 seconds and is not too difficult to do. Of course, there are multiple other ideas out there, but this is one example.

Because the format 'is' video, we need to have a quick summary of what makes a good video. Assuming you will be able to make great Vines just because you were great at social media, or even Instagram for that matter, is not necessarily a true statement. We've seen people with amazing Instagram shots create pure rubbish on Vine.

The video world is generally plagued by two evils: Low light, and camera shake.

Low-Light: This is usually easy to fix - make sure you shoot in a bright atmosphere. Video cameras love daylight, the more you tend to shoot during the day, the better it will look. Outdoor night shoots don't usually come out too well unless you have your target object lit up. Interior shots will depend on the availability of light. The more lights you can turn on, the better.

Camera-Shake: This can turn a potentially classic video into a waste in an instant. Most camera phones generally are not designed for taking video, and therefore have no internal video stabilizers etc. Camera shake looks horrible, and the best way to counteract it is to make sure to keep still. Don't film while you're walking, definitely don't film while you're running. A very easy fix is to have a mini-tripod, such as the one below. Very portable, cheap, flexible for different angles, and will give you a superbly improved Vine.



Most people seem to not realize this, but Vine records audio as well; it's just as well that this is usually muted when you watch most Vines, but this could be pretty useful depending on what you're trying to film, or otherwise annoying and noisy. Although not always possible, try to shoot in quieter areas without much surrounding noise.

Finally, the fragmented video; this is a great feature for when you want to show multiple videos in one, or create some sort of animation/sequence. However, practice and make sure that each segment is actually long enough to be coherent. We've seen multiple Vines that throw tons of video segments one after the other, not related to each other, ultimately causing a mess. If you are trying to create a sequence or animation, make sure the fragments are actually short enough to look like an animation, rather than a jerky video - we've played around with Vine and so far managed to put in approximately 30-32 frames per video. And of course, bear in mind the 6 second time-limit.

More Vine specific video tips soon.

Should your business use Vine? Part 2

Looking at the social media world today, attention spans are generally much much shorter. One of our other businesses is a video production company, and we tend to do a lot of work for companies that need a Youtube video ad or something along those lines. We've had clients come in and ask for 4 or 5 minute videos to explain their products/services, to which we've had to convince them anything longer than 30 or 45 seconds was not going to keep a viewers attention.

This remains true till today, and although the numbers are probably a lot smaller now. Unless your content is superbly engaging, most people won't bother waiting through it all.

Before we venture into what makes a good Vine, let's explore why Vine came to be in the first place; the company was initially started by a few guys, and eventually went on to be bought by Twitter even before they launched. Twitter obviously saw a lot of benefit; but let's look at a possibility of why that is.

We've all come across video advertising online, whether waiting to watch a video, read an article, or just having something pop-up in our face out of nowhere. Some of these videos edge on bearable, others are just too long to watch. We've personally closed webpages because we couldn't wait to watch the whole advertising video, and there was no skip button.

But 6 seconds? Autoplay? On repeat?

That could start up in the background and just stay there till you're done. Or open up in a pop-up, something for you to watch while your actual video buffers. The potential to actually make advertising bearable is here, and it's in 6 second form. And that, my friends, is where the money is to be made.

The issue is now, how to change your traditional advertising method from a 30 second, or even one minute video, to a 6 second video. We need to cut out the fat, keep in the parts that stand out, and just make a direct, straight to the point message. Where do we benefit as businesses? It definitely costs less. Where do we need to put in a little more effort? In the creativity department.

The point is not to squeeze everything that would have been in a 30 second ad into 6 seconds, but rather cut all the unnecessary fluff, and deliver the message we want right into your potential customer's lap. It's actually pretty revolutionary.

In part 3 we'll discuss some possible ways to make those 6 seconds count.

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.