Just when you thought you were on top of all thing social media, Twitter goes and buys Vine – an app that allows you to capture and share short, looping videos.
The concept is pretty simple. If you know how to take a video on your phone, you can send vines. All you have to do is hold your finger down on the screen of your iPhone or iPad – Vine is currently only available for iOS – and point.
There’s a six second time limit but you can start and stop as often as you like to include different scenes in your mini-movie. Click here for some excellent examples.
After you’ve put Steven Spielberg out of a job, you have the option of sharing the video on Twitter or Facebook. There are a couple of other little steps (like adding a title and location) but that’s really all there is to it.
Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann sees parallels between his service and Twitter. “We also believe constraint inspires creativity, whether it’s through a 140-character Tweet or a six-second video,” he wrote on the company’s blog.
Given that Vine is completely new, there is no data on the number of users but if the burgeoning popularity of similarly visual apps like Instagram is any indication – it’s only a matter of time before Twitter’s new purchase takes off.
So is the video app relevant to your business?
The answer is most likely going to be yes. Vine is yet another way to connect with your customers and personalise your brand. You could make short movies about your staff, show off your office and hawk your products.
As with other social media platforms, creativity guarantees eyeballs – so try to think outside the box.
