Instagram vs. Vine? Social videolisation.

Last week the next phase of social videolisation became reality, when Instagram went video. Next thing you know out of nowhere blogs appear on who’s going to win: Instagram or Vine. Not sure that’s an interesting question, let alone the answer to it.

What about YouTube?
The importance of this step by Insta is that now all three big social parties have video. Three? Uh…, yes, cuz Google’s YouTube is the number three social media – right after Google+ itself, so maybe it’s a bit weird to only focus on the other two. However, this has a reason, because Instagram and Vine have been created as social platforms and you could argue YouTube started out more as a digital channel.

Social Videolisation
So what’s the implication of all this? It basically means consumers and brands now have even less of a threshold to make, share and watch video footage online wherever and whenever. We’ve got the hardware (smartphone*ph-/tablet), highspeed network (wifi/4G) and software (social video).

Differences for Brands

-VINE: owned by Twitter, introduced in the beginning of this year. Probably responsible for the super fast intro of video to Instagram (see below). Video’s are limited to 6″ and loop. These two features gives Vine a creative edge over the others, but also makes it harder for marketers to understand how to use it. Click here for more info.

-INSTAGRAM: owned by Facebook, started out as a photo sharing social platform, recently expanded with video functionality. Video’s can be up to 15″ long. From my own experience this is very interesting, because it’s within the comfort zone for marketers and ad agencies, as they feel in 15″ you actually can spread a brand message out there. Check some early examples here. The fact that Facebook and Instagram are very well integrated gives Instagram the best deck of cards.

–YOUTUBE: owned by Google, started out as an online video channel. World leader in video sharing with an unbelievable 72 hours of content uploaded every minute. Of course there’s no real limit to how long your video can be. Although this can be looked at as a plus from a brand point of view, it’s actually not necessarily a good thing, as brand(ed) video’s can easily be too long to be watched by consumers. YouTube does have a big plus over the other two because of better Googlebility.

You could say: they’re will be a tough competition, but another – more FMCG – way of looking at it would be all parties will profit from a category that has now been fully built and still has huge potential to expand.

So: Vine vs. Insta? Whatever, social videolisation has won and will keep on doing so for quite some time. Fantastic for consumers and brands.

You can also check out other video social media such as:
–Pinterest, one of the fastest growing social media ever that started out as an online visual scrapbook. Although the majority of content is pictures, video’s can also be pinned.
–Vimeo, big YouTube competitor, more music industry lead and fed, no advertising.
–Tumblr, created as a micro blogging website and developed into one of the world’s biggest visual social media platforms.

YOUR BRAND ON PINTEREST?

Do you know Pinterest? A question a lot of people can reply affirmative. How can I or my brand use it? A question mostly pre-rolling a moment of silence.

Pinterest flowchart
Above you’ll find an interesting flowchart (source: SocialMedia.nl) giving you the opportunity to – step by step – let you come up with an answer to the title question. Of course Pinterest is far from being as humongous as Facebook (6,5 mln active members in the Netherlands), but in May the Netherlands already had 200.000 monthly visitors, coming from only around 50.000 Dutch Pinners in March (source: Marketingfacts).

Picture Power!
Furthermore, image can be (a lot more) powerful (than words), also to increase conversation, sharebility and likebility. Of course Facebook can be used for that as well, but Pinterest is sort of the most pure and well done social medium for it. And especially for the people from Holland: success in the US often heralds succes in our country.

TopTip: Join!
What usually works best to really understand a specific media is of course to start working with it; despite everybody’s consistent lack of time. First step: Sign Up; and don’t let the fact you have to wait for a couple of days for acceptance get in your way. In the meantime, if you want to learn more, register for our Pinterest-workshop (next one is on July 5th).

Other useful links (last two are in Dutch)
–Pinterest, Sign up 
–Brands on Pinterest, by Kelly Lieberman
–Pinterest. Een Goudmijn voor Merken, weblog van Sanne Walvisch
–Pinner of the Week, kijk hoe & wat anderen doen op Pinterest van Rosalie Ruardy

TELL ME YOUR STORY AND I MIGHT TRUST YOUR BRAND.

Ah… stories, don’t we all love them? Good, bad. Cute, horrifying. The ones you knew first, the ones everybody knows. The power of storytelling is ancient, current and the future.

“I am because I have a story”
Lots of people recognize the power of storytelling nowadays; it has in fact become quite a hype since the guys @ Make Believe built a serious agency around it in 2005, with agencies currently popping up like mushrooms in the Fall. Nevertheless I still believe it is hard to overestimate the power of stories. You might even say “I am because I have a story”. Imagine meeting someone who doesn’t have one. That’s even freakier than that story about the guy that didn’t have a shadow.

All brands have a story
The good thing is: it’s not so hard to have a story, because everyone naturally has one. Some people might feel their’s is not worth telling, but in my view, when you really dive into it every story is worth listening to for a certain audience. This is the same for brands. Every brand has its story, about where it came from, what the initial idea was, how it just popped up into someone’s head or just coincided. Everyone working on a brand (agency and client) should know the story. We sometimes tend to forget what made the brand we work for the brand in the first place. More importantly nowadays consumers want to know stuff about your brand and since there is a world wide web (love that word) it’s easy to share, so do it! Here’s some advice on how to get started.

Get your story out there in 4 + 1 steps
-Step 1 – Get to know the brand story.
When I started to work for the beer brand Grolsch they took me around every part of the brewery for 6 weeks. Now that might be overdoing it, but I did know the brand and product story inside out (and still do). That obligation works both ways: as an employee you need to want to know the story, as an employer or manager it’s good to let your people get to know it.
-Step 2 – Understand the story.
Knowing it is one thing, understanding it is something else. In order to get your story out there you need to understand how the story is connected to and in the end led to the brand. From Grolsch I remember Masterbrewer Peter Cuyper who came up with the combination of two types of hop that lead to the unique Grolsch taste.
-Step 3 – Make it interesting without being untrue
Now this is an interesting step, because it can be a thin line between the two. To decide how to make the story more interesting you need to know your target audience and what they like. When in Life Science you might want to know about the process, when an average consumer audience might find heritage more interesting; sometimes just showing your old ads is a great way. Shine it up: yes, but be truthful!
-Step 4 – Make it easy, interesting and fun to share
Use the web to its fullest with Youtube, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Games and the likes (don’t forget about magazines & newspapers) and get some advice on how to ideally use those media as each one has its own rules and ways to make maximum impact and cut through. This makes it easier and more fun to spread and to get consumers talking about it.
-Finally – Be proud and make the people you work for and with part of your enthusiasm. We all love great, positive stories that lead to good brands.

Although we are not all as great storytellers as the Grimms and not everyone can come up with the great Greek myths or Viking sagas, we all have a story, and by the way theydidn’t have the web.

Some examples brand stories:
– beer: Grolsch
– wheels: Vespa (wonderfully in Italian)
– social: Facebook
– shampoo: Carol’s daughter
– ice cream: Ben & Jerry’s