It's important for brands to use social media to communicate in many new and wonderful ways. You can't just stick to the same old tricks with every post, diversity in the content you share on social media will keep your fans and followers engaged and interested.

This is where Vine comes in.

What is Vine?

Hot off the press, Vine is a 6-second video sharing app from the Twitter stable. The creators of Vine describe it as “the best way to see and share life in motion. Create short, beautiful, looping videos in a simple and fun way for your friends and family to see.” Many are calling the app the next generation of Instagram and claim it could grow even faster than the photo-sharing site, which Facebook bought last year for $1 billion.

Vine could be your newest marketing weapon.

Vine presents another potentially attractive channel for your brand to reach out and engage with your audience. This is particularly true for B2B content marketers as a looping six second video opens up a new story telling ability, helping improve brand awareness, reach new audiences, boosting conversions and many other high-five results. For instance, Vine could be powerful for talent attraction: imagine having your technology graduates sharing creative 6-second videos showcasing the cool projects they're working on. Or your CEO using Vine to peel back the curtain just a bit with an intriguing peek into 6 seconds of their day; a neat way to display the organisational culture and to humanise your brand. GE is already on board with Vine and has created a pen rendering of its logo: Innovation starts at the drawing board.

Vine had its first real test last weekend, as the SuperBowl fans created and shared Vines from within the stadium and from their SuperBowl parties. In fact, as the players duelled it out on the field, the Baltimore and San Francisco fans had their own VineBowl!

Hold up, wait a minute...

It's not all sunshine and rainbows though, there are some limitations. Vine still has one foot in the lab and currently only available on iOS through the Apple App store, alienating the lion's share of smart phones running Android. Secondly, on the perception front Vine had some issues in its launch week with porn 'accidentally' being featured on the site, but even though folks at Twitter are sorting that out, it's a sign that at least the 'adult entrepreneurs' have seen the potential power in this medium. One more thing, there is very little performance data you can collect from your Vine videos and you can't add clickable links to the video description...yet.

We're jumping in.

With the social landscape constantly changing, it's hard for brands to know where to devote your attention and resources. We're not entirely convinced this will truly be the next big thing. Short videos aren't new, GIF's have been around for ages and some believe is everything that is wrong with the Internet. But since Vine is so easily shared and embedded into a tweet, it's a safe bet that Vine videos and Vine campaigns will bring many more followers to your Twitter handles. Vine presents an interesting opportunity for brands that use (read: should use) storytelling as a major element of their content strategy.

At Corporate Edge we've downloaded Vine onto our phones and we're going to have a but of fun with it over the next few weeks, so expect to see some six second snapshots of scintillating creation along the great Vine! Speaking of, here's our test run.

What are your early impressions of Vine? What other ways do you think B2B marketers could use this rising social star?

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