It wasn’t that long ago when video capture and editing was the purview of a select group. The camera equipment was expensive and bulky; it was in the league of designing a spacecraft! It also needed a lot of training and special editing software. Back in our parents’ day, they had to carry 20lb VHS recorders just to shoot a few minutes of film!

And we have it so easy! A video recorder that fits in our pocket and snippets of video in a super-digestible format. It is truly an evolution of social media apps. Voila!

In January 2013, Twitter released Vine video, its free video-sharing application that enables brands, businesses and consumers to shoot and upload six-second snippets to blogs, presentations, e-mails and social media sites. Vine is Twitter’s six-second video. The idea is to create quick, easy and interesting short films to share with friends and network on Facebook and Twitter. It is an app, currently only for iOS, that records six seconds of video and posts it on an endless loop to your Twitter account.

We have put together a bunch of reasons why Vine should be a part of your marketing mix?

We have already noticed how more marketers are using images and videos in their marketing mix; visual content is a marketer’s survival guide today. Capture quick video snippets and post them to YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

It’s testimony to the fact that media soothsayers have been crowing for years about how video is the future.

It is also a great App to drive Social Media ROI. One can drive more traffic by using tags, social buttons and share buttons.

1) It is a perfect app for brand-new user generated content

In my previous blog, we discussed how companies would make the most of User Generated Content. And Vine is the best way to create short, beautiful, looping videos in a simple and fun way. Sometimes, clients have problems gathering up-to-date seasonal content for their websites, however user generated content is a great source of recent information and Vine is a perfect platform to leverage that.

Vinepeek is a website that enables one to drive more traffic to all social media platforms. It aggregates videos in real time showcasing an endless stream of six-second snippets of everyday lives.

2) It is a brand new and exciting way to reach out

Vine has managed to garner mass followings despite of it being a micro-video site. It is a great way to reach out to followers, and customers by broadcasting a 6 second video. One can also shoot a short loop; post a video with a minimum of 3 seconds. A brand or a company can share the best moments with the new hero of video sharing app. Its brevity is the (potential) source of its creativity. Small Tip– Pick a shot that’s mostly still but has just one or two elements that move.

3) It is the combination of the best!

Vine is a video sharing app, a combination of photo and video sharing with sounds. You can think of Vine as Instagram meets YouTube with a dash of Twitter!

Social networks, Facebook and Twitter are aware of this and have already started to get their hands on it.  We saw a couple months ago how Facebook is betting on improving the way content is consumed on its platform. Two of the latest improvements are the Social Graph and the Newsfeed update. The latest development in the social video area is Twitter’s Vine Social Video App.

4) Vine is great for Social SEO

Vine is a true representation of the times as far as how and where communication between brands and the individual is going. Social video apps are how people want to engage and communicate with each other. Twitter’s inclusion of video content will prove to be a pivotal asset in the process of strengthening brands’ relationships with their consumers, as they develop their social SEO and search marketing strategies.

5) Vine is simple to use

Vine is simple to use, the app’s stripped-down interface attempts to remove every point of friction. It offers users the opportunities to actively edit their creation. It is content that is easily made and easily consumed.

Vine videos are already starting to clog my Twitter feed and here’s a link one such interesting video. Let us know how you would use this cool video-sharing app both personally and professionally.

You can connect with us on Twitter @futurontweets or you can follow us on Facebook. 
Disclaimer: All links/image posted are on third party websites. Copyrights as applicable.

Sounds outrageous doesn’t it?

However look beyond glare of targeting and ROI and what is actually happening with SEO?

If you think of it in terms of the word “market” then SEO is a sledgehammer of a tool, for the right price for the retailer thrusts his product to the front of the queue and the buyer has to search for alternatives. All well and good if he finds what he wants first time round but here’s the critical bit – a demand has been satisfied but has a demand been created?? Absolutely not!

With the worlds finances in perilous turmoil and economic stagnation looming for major economies advertising is going to have to “create” demand. If it doesn’t then essentially all retailers are doing is taking part in a race to the bottom, forever trying to grab a bigger slice of a shrinking pie.

Ultimately SEO will not make any more revenue around the globe, merely it will just recycle existing demand.

Prior to the internet revolution nearly all marketing helped create demand. Press, TV, direct mail all alerted consumers to products they didn’t know they needed! There’s an irony in the paradox that the more companies ignore other methods and rely more on SEO advertising the less demand they create for their products.

Sadly (though we all hate them!) banner ads are now one of the lowest ranking advertisng methods, the graph is below and the full Google stats here!

The light at the end of the internet tunnel is Facebook. Advertising on Facebook is not SEO in the sense that the social network promotes products to consumers by way of discovery from their friends. Sure there’s a targeting element to it but the crucial points of peer influence and social awareness are there by the bucket load, consequently creating demand.

Influence leading to demand generation are key!!

This is essentially a brand awareness tool!

Press, TV, radio, outdoor, DM etc all have the ability to promote visions of aspirations and aspirations are what the world needs right now! Here’s the equation:

DISCOVERY = ASPIRATION = DESIRE = DEMAND = ENGAGEMENT = PURCHASE

That’s the traditional model of how consumers are lured to buy a product. With SEO, discovery, aspiration, desire and demand are left to other mediums to create so we need to be a little less fanatical about the new kid on the block!

Readers of my other blogs and other Futuron blogs will know that we bang on about integration of media but what we really need to create is a split where we insure that the pie is getting bigger all the time. Only with that will all get to see a more prosperous world!

I think we can all sense that we need a blend of marketing to have a successful strategy but the array of choice is a little bewildering at times. Where do we concentrate our efforts and our budget? As my last blog discussed, find it here, even major advertising agencies are struggling to get to grips with it!

A conversation I had recently turned out to be very revealing.
I have a house for sale and after recently producing a QR code (I only use the best and Delivr is just that, www.delivr.com)  for an estate agent (realtor to some of you!) I decided to give him the business.

We talked about how to market the property, of course his website supported by his iPhone app and facebook page plus QR codes and NFC chips would be important as would the listing nationally on the property website wwwrightmove.co.uk. Rightmove (www.rightmove.co.uk) is especially important as, in effect, it supplies SEO data back that allows the seller and his agent to gauge how well the marketing is going and whether the price will be attained without a long period of being on the market. By knowing ones share of available traffic, buyer interest can be accurately measured.

What about “real world” marketing I asked? For example, sale board and press advertising. I was told a board is always useful as neighbours chat and the word spreads in the area. Press advertising however was described as next to useless! “Hadn’t sold a property from it in months”!! Which was strange because I see the agents press ad every week!

So, I asked, why do it? After some discussion it became apparent that press marketing was essential to promote the agent not to buyers but to potential sellers. First rule of being a property agent is have properties to sell.
Essentially it has become, in the property arena, a brand awareness tool, not a selling tool.

So for this company, it finds it’s buyers in the virtual world via internet search but finds its customers in the real world via traditional marketing methods, press and outdoor signs.

This is the quintessential example of a modern marketing mix. It is an holistic approach that treats the buying and selling elements differently and achieves success by playing on the key strengths of different media – Internet for is for search and press and outdoor is for brand awareness. The company has to do both well to survive and prosper, neither old nor new media alone can make it a successful company.

No charts and graphs to ponder over but please try scanning this QR code with your smartphone and see an agent grasping everything that technology can offer! For those without a smartphone check out www.bradshawhenderson.com

See you next time!