3 Ways Brands are Using Vine for Father’s Day

Brands are becoming increasingly more active on the new social media app Vine and for good reason. Unruly Media, a video technology company, recently found that branded vines are shared 4x as often as other branded Internet videos. Branded vines were also 4% of the top 100 shared vines. This is almost unheard of as most viral videos are not connected to brands. The platform allows users to create six-second looping videos. The apps brevity, like Twitter,  encourages brands to get creative while appealing to consumers rapidly shrinking attention span.

With Father's Day around the corner, many brands are using Vine as a marketing tool. Here are three ways we've seen brands use Vine effectively:

1. Promote Products

Vines 6-second format changes the way advertisers approach video marketing. With limited time, companies have to spotlight their products in an interesting way and get their message across fast. Moonpig, a greeting card company that allows users to create unique cards online, created a vine to promote their Father's Day cups:

— Moonpig (@MoonpigUK) June 11, 2013

Cold Stone Creamery took product promotion a step further and explicitly suggested their icecream over traditional choices:

2. Give Insight into Products

Instead of presenting a finished product, Vine allows brands to show the process of creation. Cloak and Dapper, a gentleman's clothing store, used this method to spotlight individual products in a gift box:

3. Host Competitions

Hosting competitions is nothing new to marketers, but Vine does add a new spin on traditional methods. Vine is a fast way to drive engagement around their brands when used well. Remington Park, a racetrack and casino based in Oklahoma, are hosting a competition with an incentive big enough to convince people to visit them on Father's day:

There is nothing like the power of video for communication, and the Internet is a more effective vehicle for delivery than any other outlet available. iQuarius Media is an expert in every step of creating videos that deliver. To discuss how our  Web Video Production and Delivery team can help you, contact Shea Glenny at shea@iquariusmedia.com.

Top Ways Brands are Utilizing Social Media

If you want your business to be successful, increasing engagement with fans through social media is crucial. These articles on the updates to Instagram along with insight into how other brands are doing social media right provide the perfect foundation for increasing your brand’s online influence.

Instagram’s New Tagging Feature is Huge for Brands

Instagram has introduced a feature Facebook users are familiar with: the ability to tag photos. With “Photo's of You” users have the ability to tag photos with any other instagram user, business or product. This is big for brands as they can curate the photos tagged with their name, showcase the best photos on their stream, and tag their photos to show on other users stream. Entrepreneur.com believes that “this adds a new level of consumer reach — the feature aims to compel users to interact directly with the brands and businesses they follow.” Brands will also be able to post the same photo in a number of relevant streams, multiplying their reach with a single tag and attract fans from a wider audience.

Why Victoria's Secret is Winning at Social Media -- While Other Brands Fail

When it comes to social media, Victoria's Secret is proving quantity is as important as quality. According to Expion, a social media marketing management company, 87% of the top posts on Facebook between January 1st- March 31% were made by Victoria's secret, Walmart and Burberry. Although Victoria's Secret's scantily clad models may have something to do with their popularity, their success is largely due to product focused posts that centered on major holidays. Walmart employed a similar tactic and posted seasonal deals, in addition to humorous photos of animals the internet can't get enough of. Burberry had the highest engagement out of the top 100 brands, but Victoria's Secret beat them from the top spot by posting twice as much. The key to social media popularity is regular engagement with fans, so posting has to be both relevant and consistent.

Five Companies that Mastered Social Media's Branding Potential

Many companies struggle with finding a way to get consumers to connect with their products on social media – there's only so many ways you can talk about tampons or household appliances after all. But big brands are finding that the easiest way to be successful on social media is to allow the fans to lead the conversation. Fastcodesign.com suggests three steps to online success: Go where the people are, Have a legitimate purpose, and Be real. Consumers look to social media to find the human behind the company and find something outside of product promotion. Pepsi found that connecting to causes that supported their core values was a way to be real while encouraging fans to take action. They made their platform online more about ideas than soda, by “shifting branding focus to funding causes for social good”. This encourages fans to interact online by voting and forms a connection in the consumers mind with doing good and drinking Pepsi.

Image source: Jason A. Howie

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