It was just a few weeks ago that we were writing about Vine and all of the interesting uses it may have. Here we are, less than a month later, and we’re writing again to tell you that the social video site may be heading to an early grave. Instagram has just released a flash video service similar to Vine’s, and since it already has the user base built in, it is starting at an advantage. Either one will be useful for your automotive marketing efforts, we just need to watch the fight and see where the audience goes.
Instagram came out with a machete, and now Vine needs to grow faster than ever before or resign itself to its new postion, withering on the jungle floor.
INSTAGRAM’S OFFER
To get the video feature on Instagram, you just need to go and download the latest update. You’ll be greeted with a new interface and taking videos works exactly the same way it does on Vine: you hold your finger to record, release to stop. This allows for the same kind of frenetically cut, stop-motion videos that are flourishing on Vine. The differences on Instagram are the videos are 15 seconds instead of 6, and you can apply their famous filters to your shots. Some people may like the creativity the shorter form of Vine enforces (similar to Twitter) but will that be enough to make them use two apps when one will suffice?
Probably not.
If Vine wants to retain the bulk of its users, they need to innovate and fast. They need to be able to offer something that Instagram doesn’t. More than that though, they need to be able to offer something that Instagram can’t just replicate as soon as they release it. It’s not exactly a promising proposition.
MARKETING
The good news is that, unless you work for Vine, this is good news. It gives you another way to interact with your customers over Instagram, and Vine has proven that short video ads can have a pretty big reach if they’re clever enough. If you’ve already built an audience on both platforms, keep using both until one (Vine) is a ghost town. If you haven’t started using Vine yet, maybe hold off on sinking any time into it until they get a chance to show us why they should still be relevant.