Brands and short form video apps

August 16, 2013

The social media world has seen Instagram and Vine recreate an online version of the war of the roses with the apps fighting it out for the video app throne. Weeks have gone by with both platforms updating, tweaking and in some cases revolutionising the way we share short form video content.

Brands have an opportunity to appeal to new potential customers but creating engaging 6 and 15 second video content can be a hard task. The majority of the videos on both Vine and Instagram lack quality, planning or story so it would require brands to add a professional nature to the user friendly apps. Even with these weaknesses we are seeing brands embrace Vine and in particular Instagram, 27. 59% of brands have presences on Instagram, up 9% from Q4 2012. Being able to turn the adverts created for TV into app form will be the key to success if brands wish to take advantage of these apps. If done well brands can engage with thousands of users. One of Starbuck’s Instagram videos reached over 53,000 likes. If the battle continues we may see Vine and Instagram separate follower and business profiles similar to the set-up on Facebook.

Creating a Vine or Instagram viral video for some brands may be something for the future. A popular approach brands have taken to engage with Vine and Instagram users has been asking them to create video entry competitions. A number of brands including Urban Outfitters, Topshop and Cadbury’s have started to use this approach and have created a huge amount of hype and buzz around the brand. It has proven to be a great way to engage followers with the brand and create brand loyalty as they go out of their way to gain the brand’s attention in order to win prizes.

A picture is worth 1,000 words but as brands begin to engage with users through video it will be interesting to see how brands develop their presence in these areas and create more metaphorical words.

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