Blog

Vine vs. Instagram Video: Using the Right Mobile Platform to Market Your Business

With video becoming the future of marketing, it’s important to stay on top of the latest trends. YouTube and Vimeo allow you to share longer videos that can be used for promotional material, advertising and announcing news. A longer time window can be beneficial when sharing an informational video like a webinar or a series. Instagram and Vine, on the other hand, are all about brevity. On Instagram you can post a 15-second video whereas Vine gives you six seconds.

Even though shorter time slots may sound like a disadvantage, it’s time to reevaluate how you can use mobile video and figure out which platform is best for what you’re trying to accomplish. While Vine and Instagram are similar, some forms of marketing are more successful on one rather than the other. Shorter times allow you to catch the attention of your audience and get your product out in the open. In a previous blog post, we provided 6 tips to get the most out of Vine for your brand, but now with Instagram as competition, here are three things to keep in mind when deciding which platform works best for your business:

1. Show the creative side of your business. Using Instagram and Vine for marketing is a way to show your business’ personality. While both types of video are recorded using a Smartphone, Vine has a larger presence on the internet independent of mobile users. Instagram can still be viewed on a desktop, but relies heavily on the views coming from mobile users or from them sharing the video on Facebook or Twitter. If your business already has a strong following on Instagram you may want to keep that market interested by throwing some Instagram videos into the mix as well. But if you’re looking to build your mobile and online audience, Vine might be your best bet to get started.

2. Create a clear and concise message. With only six seconds of video on Vine, every second counts! Having this time limit will help you to narrow down exactly what you want your video to convey. It ensures that your message gets straight to the point since six seconds is hardly enough time to record a few sentences. Vine gives you the opportunity to appeal to your audience by showing, not telling. Instagram video, on the other hand gives you a little leeway to get your message out there with video and sound.

3. Promotion of giveaways and upcoming events. Vine is excellent to use for stop motion. The clear images and clean cuts make it easy to make a video that keeps the viewers’ attention without sound. Vine loops until you pause the video which opens up another creative realm of repetition. This opens up the possibility to create videos that appear continuous which will encourage the viewer to keep watching. Instagram on the other hand works best with providing teasers of the event like the preparation in order to keep your audience on their toes. Instagram provides an opportunity to show some of the hard work that went into an event or even the preliminary planning stages leading up to an event your audience will be excited for.

While all of these methods of marketing through Instagram and Vine can help show your company’s personality, the best thing to do that is show what your company is made of. Vine and Instagram offer the ability to express what your business is about in a way that words and pictures cannot.

Getting in tune with the future of video marketing can help your business market to the younger demographic that frequents Vine while keeping the rest of your audience engaged on Instagram.  When deciding which medium to use, be sure to have clear goals in place in order to find the platform that works best for your brand.

Have other ideas of how to use Instagram Video and Vine for marketing? Let us know in the comments!

Mworks740 • July 15, 2014

Posted in these categories:

With these tags:

Keep Reading...