Why use Vine and Instagram for Video Marketing?

The attention span of an adult has fallen from 15 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013. This clearly shows that people are no longer staying on task as they once were. Now this fall in attention span has most likely been caused by the immense uptake in not just home computers and the mass rollout of home broadband across the developed world. But in the past 5 years a new form of revolution has occurred and this is the ‘Smartphone Revolution’.

The Smartphone Revolution began in 2007 when Apple released the first ever iPhone. This was the first mass market smartphone to hit mainstream markets and as a result millions of people worldwide adopted the iPhone due to it being ahead of its time and the alternatives didn’t even come close in terms of what the consumer wanted. As a result, the iPhone was a revolutionary product and changed the game forever. This is relevant to online video because although people could watch online video on sites such as YouTube (still only 2 years old) they couldn’t watch the same content on the go. The smartphone made that possible.

Now fast forward to 2015, where there are 1.685bn active ‘mobile’  social accounts in the world and this figure is only getting bigger. Therefore of the 1.685bn users they will use multiple social media applications and the two I would like to get into are Instagram and Vine. Let me give you an understanding of how both of these applications can be used to create video to market your product or service for your business. But first here are the top 5 reasons for people following the social media accounts of a business:

1.The offers and promotion that you have going on.

2. The latest product or service information that you are offering

3. The ability to access your customer services by receiving a response via the social media account.

4. The ability to give positive or negative feedback on your business.

5. To see if your business has posted any interesting content.

Instagram

So lets start with Instagram. Instagram has a user base of 300m users worldwide and the videos can be as long as 15 seconds (you can upload videos from your phone if recorded outside of Instagram). Now 15 seconds may not seem like a lot of time for you to market your business but because the average human attention span is now 8 seconds you have to be smart with your time and deliver memorable and effective content in that time (I’ll go over some suggestions for videos later). Now the reason to use Instagram for video marketing is because users are already there on Instagram to view their friends photos and videos and the other interesting accounts of people they like.

But this isn’t to simply say that you come to Instagram just to market your products just because you know potential customers are there. But by creating content that customers want to see and will follow your account because of what you can offer them (see the above list of top 5 reasons for people following your account), this is what you need to focus on. Instagram’s video feature can be of use if you would like to target the younger market because 53% of users are in the 18-29 age group meaning that if your product or service is targeted to them, Instagram is perhaps the way forward in terms of video marketing.

Instagram video suggestions –

In terms of video suggestions you could shoot a video that shows the production process of your product if it is of a particular complex nature and you charge a premium price and need help justifying the price, the video could highlight the longevity of the process and how the process results in the need product of a superior quality and is leagues ahead of your competitors.

An unboxing of your newest product.

A spoken customer testimonial that highlights your business’s services.

Respond to customers’ frequently asked questions.

Vine

Now we come to Vine. This platform has a much shorter time limit of 6 seconds, but if this sounds like too little time to create anything worthwhile check out this link to see how big brands are using Vine as a valuable tool for video marketing. Vine came before Instagram implemented its video feature but has a much smaller user base of 40m (2013) this means that you have less customers to attract, but don’t panic because Vine can be where you can post content that is perhaps a  bit more quirky and more informal because the most popular user group is the 18-20 age group. This can be used to your advantage because if your business is particularly creative, such as if you create works of art you could show a time-lapse of how you create one of your pieces and this show the creative process of constructing your latest piece.

Vine suggestions –

A time lapse of your product creation

A quick panorama Vine that displays your office environment to show where your business operates. This is especially useful as customers can see the work that goes on behind the scenes and can show that actual humans are behind the products and services they love.

A quick stop motion that shows the a particular range of products in your portfolio such as your new winter range.

Final comments

Try experimenting with different types of video content as you may find that one form of content is particularly successful and goes down well with your audience and that is one type of content that you will want to consider putting more effort into.

Whatever video you decide to create you need to make sure that it is focused on what your customers want and is meant for a purpose so avoid needless posting that can overload the user’s feed.

Don’t expect to create content that is on the same level in terms of professionalism as big brands, all you need is your smartphone and from there just point and shoot.

By Harpreet Bal