Still not sold on Vine, the six-second video montage service that's owned by Twitter? Even the U.S. Government is climbing aboard. Friendly terms of service were signed by the General Services Administration and Twitter last week cleared the way for U.S. agencies to post six-second Vine videos without fear of violating any rules, according to Mashable.
While government agencies are not known as the early adopters in the social media space, their jumping onto Vine signifies the growing importance for organizations to offer their audiences with a behind-the-scenes look into how their companies operate via video content.
The Interior Department's first Vine video (below), which give viewers a tour of five new national monuments, is a prime example of exactly how much can be packed into a six second video clip.
Jason Woodward, a research and social/digital media associate at Hunter Public Relations, provided a couple of key tips that PR pros need to know about Vine:
1) Brands can tell stories on Vine that they know their viewers will watch all the way to the end.
Research abounds on the optimal video length for the Web’s modern viewer, with recommendations varying from 30 seconds to four minutes. But by capping its videos at six seconds, Vine asks for a virtually insignificant time investment from the viewer.
This all but guarantees that if someone starts watching your Vine, he or she will watch the whole thing. Since Vines loop endlessly, most consumers will probably watch them through multiple times. Instead of worrying about the video’s parameters, the lightweight nature of Vine enables brands to focus on what they should do best: tell a compellling story.
2) Content is still king, but creativity has become the prince.
More important than any medium, budget or featured celebrity is the actual quality of the marketing messages you create and produce. In other words: content is king. However, the quality of your content is fueled by the distinctiveness of your creativity. And the less you have to work with, the more creative you’re forced to be.
In other words: constraints drive creativity. Such is the case with Vine. It now offers videographers a very limited toolkit. To wit, all video must be shot on an iPhone (for now); it must be shot within the Vine app; it can’t be cropped, edited or touched up after the fact; you can’t add any text or special effects and external videos that were taken somewhere else cannot be imported into the app.
Although these might seem like barriers, smart marketers will see them as opportunities for their creativity to flourish, creating content that tells a story that wouldn’t really make sense on another medium. Google these lighthearted examples: “Dying for a coffee” from one of Twitter’s illustrators and “Good things come together” from Malibu Rum.
PR News subscribers can read the full version of Woodwar'ds "How To: 5 Things That Communicators Should Know About Twitter's Vine."
Looking to become the "Vine" leader in your organization? Register now for PR News' April 30 Webinar: How to Use Vine to Boost Engagement With Your Brand.
Not that I really believe this video was actually shot by the US Department of the Interior, but if this is the best example that Vine can provide us about their service, then they have some serious problems. This is one of the worst examples of online video I’ve seen in some time.
That was painful. It takes more than 6 seconds to read the names of the parks. Since they’re NEW parks, there’s no hope for recognition in such a brief exposure.