Short Videos: Hot Trend or Flash in the Pan?

Written by Howard Fenton,
Senior Technology Consultant, NAPL
Have you seen the explosive interest in video? In January, Twitter introduced a new service called Vine which allows users to create and tweet six-second, looping videos.  Since then, Vine has become the number one download from the Apple app store. It has become so popular that a number of national brands are experimenting with Vine.
A recent report by Leadtail provides some interesting insights into the appeal of Vine. The report focused on the Twitter activity of 1797 marketing executives during the first quarter of 2013. Over that period of time, the executives sent over 400,000 tweets and shared almost 86 shared links. The report found that 10% of marketing decision-makers shared at least one Vine video during the first quarter.
As many people already recognize, the emerging importance of video is not new. After Google, YouTube is the second most popular search engine. While some people use it as an entertainment tool, the marketing community is seeing it as a new marketing opportunity. As a result, Google has enhanced the importance of video in their definition of what’s important for search engine optimization.
The success of Vine has not gone unnoticed and other social media sites are adding short videos to their capabilities. For example,  Facebook, the owner of Instagram, recently announced that they were adding fifteen second videos to their site. They have created thirteen filters to modify video and introduce an image stabilization feature called Cinema. According to a video posted online, the difference is significant.
What do you think about these ultra-short videos? Will these short videos have the same influence as 2-3 minute videos, such as increasing SEO (search engine optimization)? Will marketers embrace short videos as part of a cross media marketing campaign? Or are short videos more like a meteor streaking across the sky—a very brief life that burns out quickly?
Interested in similar topics? You may want to check out:

• Three Technologies Permanently Reshaping Our Industry
• The Next Big Thing – New Mobile Technologies
• Personalized Video: The Next Media in New Media
• Small Printers Offering Video Services … Really? Yes, Really!

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Howie Fenton is a consultant and business advisor at NAPL as well as a paid contributor to this blog. Howie advises commercial printers and in-plants on benchmarking performance against industry leaders, increasing productivity, and adding digital and value services through customer research. For more information click here.