Excerpt...

The chain described above shows another important aspect of Vine: it's a community. Vine creators include each other in their Vines and routinely share their favorite Viners' posts. It's a collaborative environment. Remember when it was such a big deal for the cast of "Diff'rent Strokes" to appear on "The Facts of Life" in a crossover episode? On Vine, this happens all the time. Stars are constantly looking to boost their friends' ratings. They're all in this together. And not just during sweeps week.

In a previous post, I wrote about many of the scarier myths that are floating around about video in email and gave a few reasons why now might be the right time to put aside those fears and give it a try.

Important excerpt...

It’s true that not every email client will support video delivery. So, it’s important to know which email clients support HTML5 and also to know your user base.

Condensed...

It’s a little early to claim there are gold standard best practices, but there are a few recommendations that I can make.

• Put the word “video” in the subject line.
• Auto-play should not be an option.
• Provide clear calls-to-action close to the video. Because click-throughs cannot be embedded in a video, you’ll need to provide users with something to click on, whether it’s a button or just a hyperlink near the video.
• The chrome surrounding the video player will vary by email client. Some players are elegantly self-contained; others have bars and buttons that extend the dimensions of the video box. Provide enough whitespace around the video to accommodate the variation in player dimensions.
• Shorter is better.
• Aspirational, experience-based videos tend to do better than how-to’s or overly promotional messages.

Vine has already clarified just how quickly its userbase is growing, with the announcement that the app had hit 13 million downloads by the time Twitter launched it on Android. This was all just a week ago.

Excerpts...

Today, however, we’ve learned that Vine has climbed to the top of the charts on Android as the top social app and the No. 4 free app on Google Play. Instagram is No. 5.

What’s more likely is that Vine users want to share on Twitter because the Vine ecosystem is still growing, and those users want to ensure that their creation gets as many views from friends as possible. Then add to it the fact that Vine launched on Android just around the time that Vine.co shares surpassed Instagram.com shares, and it’s clear that Vine simply has a growing group of people interested in using the service.

Video app Vine's simple design and integration with Twitter have helped create buzz in the business and marketing world. Interested? Here are six steps to help you get started with Vine

1. Is Vine Right for Me?
2. Have a Purpose
Even though apps like Vine can be exciting, new tools for marketing, it is important not to rush into using them without a clearly defined purpose.

3. Have a Plan
If Twitter is a micro-blogging platform, Vine is a micro-storytelling app. You will need a micro-plan (like this video planning template).

4. Be Creative

5. Keep Content Fresh
If your content looks and feels like something that could have been an Instagram photo, it probably should have been just that. Your audience will skim right over boring content, so avoid sharing your meals in a video-format and stick to the good stuff.

6. Don’t Run Out of Time

Summary...

What does Vine offer marketers? Is there any chance six seconds of airtime will add value to your social media plan, or help you stand out from the crowd? Definitely. And here’s why:

• Everyone has a six-second attention span. There’s little chance your followers or customers will pull the plug partway through your Vines simply because the clips won’t last long enough to try their patience. Likewise, your followers are much more likely to pass it on to their social connections, knowing it won’t take them a ton of time or effort to enjoy either.
• Anyone has time to make a six-second video. Forget storyboarding. Forget production values. Forget two drafts of a script. Forget choosing a song and opening titles. Vines are designed to show a moment in time, and that’s about how long they take to create, too –which means Vine is a painless addition to your content plan.
• Choose one thing to say, and you’re more likely to succeed. Marketers often try and pack too much meaning into status updates and tweets, hoping to engage with more people in the process. But six seconds is only time enough for one idea or scene or design element –and that can help prevent overachievers from mucking it up too much.
• Don’t underestimate the GIF factor. Everywhere you look online, people are posting GIFs, those wacky animated images that overflow from Tumblr blogs and forum postings and Reddit comment streams. A Vine is basically an overgrown GIF. Or an Instagram with more punch. Or maybe even something new the internet has been longing for?

Twitter Vine: here are some creative ways businesses are using these short, six-second videos to engage with Twitter followers and Facebook friends.

#1: Engage Your Followers in Conversation

#2: Highlight Your Brand Advocates

#3: Display Your Work for a Client

#4: Offer Up Relevant Historical Trivia

#5: Celebrate the Holidays

#6: Get People Excited About a New Product

#7: Take People Inside Your Office

#8: Attract Customers to Your Booth

#9: Educate and Amaze

#10: Bring People Inside Your Stores

#11: Tell Your Brand’s Story

#12: Promote a Contest

#13: Bring Presentations to Life

#14: Show Off Your Products

#15: Give Fans What They Want

#16: Randomly Amuse Your Audience

Get Started With Vine in Six Steps

1. Download and install the Vine app from iTunes for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
2. Create a Vine account using your Twitter profile or email address.
3. Find people to follow by going to your profile and clicking the People icon at the top right of your screen. You can also go to your settings and use the Find People option under Friends.
4. Connect your Facebook account to share videos on Facebook as well (personal profiles only).
5. Click the video camera icon to start recording videos. Tap your finger on the screen to record and release to stop recording.
6. When you’re finished, click Continue to share your video on Vine, Twitter and Facebook.

The Marketing Automation Alert's analytics show a high degree of interest in Vine (and rightly so!). So to that end, and to make life a bit easier, here are the articles that we've collected thus far that focus on Vine:

• Twitter-Linked ‘Vine’ App Could Offer Video Marketing Possibilities - KoMarketing Associates
• Vine Analytics Already? Yep. And Free, Too - MarketingLand 
• The Marketer's Ultimate Guide to Measuring the ROI of Twitter & Vine: Hubspot
• How to leverage Twitter’s Vine app for B2B content marketing | SmartBlogs
• The Do's and Don'ts of Using Vine for Marketing - Hubspot
• Digital Marketing on a Vine–Twitter’s New Video Venue - Biznology

Vine issues summarized...

It’s true there are some problems. It’s simple, yes – but, almost too simple. I’d like just a little more editing power, and the ability to sandbox a few videos before publishing directly to Vine. There’s no way to connect with your Facebook friends who might also be on Vine. The biggest social network saw fit to cut that link. And most importantly, search and share capabilities on the app are underwhelming.

These shortcomings hinder Vine as a marketing tool. Unlike Twitter, Vine videos aren’t accessible from its website, though several websites that aggregate them have already appeared. (Check out VineRoulette, JustVined, and Cats on Vine.) This means that searching for and finding Vine videos isn’t particularly easy to do.

Summary...

10 video ideas for B2B companies just getting started with Vine:

1. Showcase the building and grounds of your company’s headquarters.
2. Use stop-motion animation to deliver an exciting company announcement.
3. Show the steps it take to make your flagship product.
4. Humanize your brand by introducing your employees.
5. Encourage customers to showcase how they use your products with a Vine video and reward them with prizes or giveaways.
6. Create video clips from a charity event or corporate outing your company has organized.
7. Highlight a video testimonial: Ask your customers what three words they would use to describe your company.
8. Create teasers for upcoming webinars, events or trade shows.
9. Create a Vine campaign series; for example, how to install your product in four easy, six-second steps.
10. Animate the cover page of (or data chart within) case studies, white papers or reports, promoting the full document in an engaging way.

If you’re one of those super-early adopters of Vine, there’s already a way to get a basic snapshot of how your six-second videos are performing.

The folks at Simply Measured have launched a simple Vine statistics report that brands or individuals can use. The service is basically free; it only costs you a tweet announcing that you’re using the tool.

Once the report is ready, you’ll be able to see a variety of stats related to engagement for your Vine videos shared during the previous seven days.