Spreading the Vine to Customers  

Vine seems to be making a comeback: but mainly in the business world. The last time I logged on to Vine was around my freshman year of high school. So accessing my Vine account was not only a way for me to discover how businesses are employing Vine within their marketing strategy, but also a trip down good ole memory lane for me.

Vine is described as being a social media platform similar to Instagram but with ultra short videos that followers can watch over and over again, and push a button to “like” a video, or leave a comment. For me, I find Vine a very easy concept to understand and to maneuver around the site. That idea could very well be because of my long time familiarity of Vine’s platform, but I don’t remember having many difficulties initially with learning the layout of the site.

Because I was previously familiar with Vine, I delved right in to learning how businesses are using Vine to promote their company, products, services or industry. One concept seemed unanimous amongst the majority of the Vines I watched: companies know their customers/audience. This aspect is crucial in all areas of marketing and advertising, as well as all areas of the industry, including production, design and implementation and the company itself. All of the Vines were very modern-based. My favorites were of Nike with sports athletes working hard on the court or area of play. Dick’s Sporting Goods also appealed to their audience by not hounding what they sell, but rather taking their viewers in to the Raven’s Stadium in Baltimore. This is a perfect example of knowing your audience because you realize that current/potential customers do not liked to be hounded with constant brand or product marketing.

Another popular way of gaining more viewers and interactions with customers is to promote a contest on the social media app. This technique is very popular across the social networking world, just as it is on Vine. Viewers will be able to see the Vine with instructions and the “prize” they win if their Vine is picked to be the best. This allows for not only the customers to learn more about the brand and engage with the business and feel important, but it also provides a significant benefit to the business itself. By using contests of Vine making, businesses are able to see EXACTLY how customers view the company and product or service offered, or gain insight to the types of commercials they should be making to entice their audience.

Businesses also have the unique opportunity to make Vines and them distribute the vines out to other affiliated social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This is a very smart way to increase the exposure on a particular Vine that may have been popular on the website itself. Also, including short videos on other social media sites that have stagnant posts will draw viewers in to watch the quick blurb of a video and act as a refresher from reading everything on the newsfeed.

Overall, I find Vine a very useful tool in networking and connecting with customers and viewers across numerous platforms, a way to add variety to your advertisements and marketing strategy and most importantly, Vine allows for businesses to interact with their viewers and audience, which is again a very important aspect that a business should meet if they are employing social media sites in to their marketing strategy.