Vine is a new video-sharing app that has fun components and could be the latest and greatest tool for the PR Industry. Bestowed upon us mere mortals from the gods of Twitter, this fresh video app offers the user the ability to create six seconds’ worth of embeddable video for Twitter postings. In a world where information flies at warp speed and the question we continually ask is, ‘Can I get this faster?’, this new video-sharing app could become the virtual pitch of the future. Vine provides the ability to make social media platforms truly a vehicle expressing client values, interests and news they want shared with key audiences.

Here are some innovative yet fun ways to use Vine for PR:

• New product launch/tutorial – Create a glimpse into the world of the new product and why people should want to know more.
• Red carpet event – Document who shows up.
• Conferences – Put together some snippets you feel the client’s audience would be interested in.
• Announcements – We love when news comes to life outside of lengthy word documents. Create a video of the CEO announcing a merger or commenting on a recent acquisition to create stronger brand visibility.
• Brand culture – Show your audience the personality of the company and its employees.

Twitter recently acquired Vine and began sharing this new app at the end of January.

You may be wondering, why six seconds only? Twitter engineers researched various timeframes (six to ten seconds) and stuck with six seconds because it was the ideal length for both production and consumption.

Just as Twitter made PR pros aware of how important key words and phrases are in the 140 character limit, this new app also makes us hone in what’s important for visual storytelling. Vine forces us to cut out the superfluous and get down to the nitty gritty details – get to the point and do it in six seconds or less. Brands are constantly evolving in order to survive the warp speed of the information age and these videos (like pitching a story to a journalist) have to be fast and attention-grabbing or else you risk losing your audience.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with public relations, marketing or crisis communications, contact Scott Public Relations.

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