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How much time does a brand need for social video?
If you listened carefully, you could almost hear as social media managers everywhere scrambled to piece together their first Instagram video last month.
Brands such as Lululemon, Urban Outfitters and Burberry started experimenting with the new tool shortly (in Lululemon’s case less than an hour) after Facebook’s Instagram announced the 15-second video sharing option on June 20. The news has some predicting the death of Vine – Twitter’s video app that gives users just six-seconds to flex some creative muscle.
Instagram has clear advantages, the most important being the ability for users to go back and edit their work.
But what does this mean for the ad world? Should marketers favour one platform over the other? Marketing asked social and digital experts to highlight pros and cons for each.
Vine
“Vine has a laser-sharp focus: short, entertaining loops. Vine cashes in on our obsession for animated GIFs in a way that Instagram has totally ignored. This gives brands with a quirkier personality, a unique venue to share their stories.”
– Scott Weisbrod, VP, strategy at Critical Mass
“When Vine launched for us it was interesting to see how creative you could be with such a limitation in terms of only having six seconds, the inability to edit, only being able to shoot from your iPhone and I think some brands took advantage of that.”
– Tyler Turnbull, SVP, strategy and insight at Proximity Canada
“I think the stop motion aspect of [Vine] has been creating some of the most interesting stuff, having that built in as a feature has led to some really interesting work there. The loop is interesting.”
– David Jones, VP, social media at Critical Mass
“Instagram video has the advantage of large user base. In some ways, this makes staying the course with Instagram an easy choice for brands. Instagram encourages a continuous narrative with its 15-second, non-looping experience, giving marketers a chance to share—knowing how ironic this sounds—a more considered, longer-form story. It’s also backed by Facebook, which offers a mature advertising platform for Instagram to leverage in the future.”
– Scott Weisbrod
“Instagram is both photo and video. You’re not committing yourself to the thought process that goes into video all the time. It can be more serendipitous, whereas with Vine you need to storyboard it out and also get the creative approved way in advance. Instagram allows you to shoot, review and share.”
– Ed Lee, senior director of social media at DDB Toronto
“It’s easy to shoot video, it’s tough to shoot good video. Even a 15-second video is tough to do so that it’s interesting and tells the story in a meaningful way and stands out. Instagram made everybody’s pictures a little bit better. Well see if it does the same for short-form video.”
– David Jones
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