Vine, what should you use it for?

[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”lifted-both” width=”565px” height=”” background_color=”#dcdcdc” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]This is the first post on my blog from Courtney Gordner. She is a blogger with a passion for all things internet and social media related! Read more from her on her own blog,talkviral.com. She will be posting here on asmithblog.com every Friday about how we can all use social media in a more effective way.[/dropshadowbox]

How Vine Works

Vine is the new kid on the block in world of social media. Just as Twitter allows users to send short messages limited to only 150 characters, Vine limits to six seconds of video. This sort of micro-content is useful for companies looking to improve their marketability via social media, through dynamic marketing.

To use vine just visit the iTunes app store and install the app. Even though all Vine vids come with audio, tweeted videos are muted initially. However Vine can be used to do so much more. Here are a few marketing techniques you can use along with Vine:

Using Vine for Marketing

Brands can communicate with consumers directly through these short-short films, spreading their messages all over the internet. But as with all new forms of marketing, you should develop a detailed agenda to effectively manage and distribute your content.

• Interactive campaigns

When using Vine to market a product, make sure your content is interactive. Engaging the consumer is the key to a successful campaign. Make sure that users are commenting and sending Vine videos of their own in response.

• Emotional connections

Part of connecting with the consumer means getting them emotionally invested in every video. Your content needs feel like it matters. This means creating a narrative to draw in the customers.

• Tweaser

Using Vine to make teasers or Tweasers for your brand is effective. Hinting at new products and promotions with Tweasers is a good way to create a buzz for your brand. Some companies like 12 palms recovery facility are starting to use Vine to give tours of their facilities. It’s a great way to get other people inside your doors, without them actually coming!

• Drive traffic using Vinepeek

Vinepeek, a site that streams the most recent vines, is a useful platform to spread your message. Your Vine will be shuffled amongst random videos, adding a viral authenticity to your content.

• Using the power of Hashtags

Thanks to Twitter, the hashtag has made it possible for content to spread in clusters. Hashtags make your campaign trackable, which is perfect for marketers, since it allows you to see the effectiveness of a campaign using measurable metrics.

• Using Vine in real-time

By using the hashtags and the features on Twitter you can interact with your customers instantaneously. This allows you to be flexible and create content on the fly.

Vine is useful and has several marketing functionalities. However, these are early days for the platform and more sites like Vinepeek are sure to become ubiquitous. There are numerous examples of solid Vine marketing campaigns that have gone viral, all of which are instructive on how to create effective videos.