Last week Twitter announced that it is
shutting down Vine. The six-second video creation app won’t be available much
longer. Although the site will remain up indefinitely to pass the cultural
heritage to the future generations.
While the news created major waves in digital
community, it really came as no surprise. Its parent company, Twitter itself
has been struggling lately, which is another topic deserving its own article.
So what lessons can entrepreneurs learn from
Vine’s short lifespan?
1. Don’t get too invested in one
medium.
How many times have you heard that Facebook
is essential to your business success? Or a blog? Instagram? Did you hear the
latest advice that you absolutely must be on Snapchat?
There are as many opinions as people; and
everyone thinks that their way is the only right way, especially if they’re
successful.
However, at the end of the day, you have to
remember that a medium is just that: a vehicle for your message. Trends will
come and go, and so will the apps we love and use.
Yes, some platforms have proven their
longevity, yet there is no guarantee that all of them will exist in the form we
know them today. To put it in a perspective, just a decade ago, when Myspace
was at its prime, people would call you crazy if you suggested that it wouldn’t
be around for much longer. So would do the people who have millions of
followers on Vine.
So, you have to figure out your message and
simply find a way to share it in a variety of formats. That way, you’re not
putting all of you eggs in one basket.
2. Smaller communities can be
passionate.
Vine had brought together a strong community.
While it may not have been relatively huge, it was meaningful. Users who stuck
around for the whole time feel strongly about Vine.
I am not saying you should be present on
every obscure network out there, but smaller communities, or niches, can be
very powerful. A thousand passionate customers may prove to be much more
important, than 10,000 distracted followers who do not have an emotional
connection with your offering.
3. Stay current.
Don’t jump on every single platform out
there. However, pay attention to where your customers are.
Let’s say your product caters to young
adults. Well, you have to follow them around where they reside online. Because
Facebook was great for reaching millennials five years ago, that doesn’t mean
you should cling to it and ignore Instagram or Snapchat.
Moreover, analyze the appeal of these
different networks and see if you can uncover bigger trends and needs. For
example, Instagram is inspirational. Snapchat offers privacy. Facebook Live
offers broadcasting opportunities. However, all of them offer an instantaneous
feeling, being there in a moment. This is what people care about these days.
4. Get creative.
One of the possible reasons for Vine demise
is the fact that marketers didn’t find a good way to monetize the platform.
Yes, I know bad, bad marketers; they want to monetize everything. However,
social networks depend on funding and monetizing.
This fact presented a huge untapped
opportunity for entrepreneurs. Since most of advertisers had their reasons not
to be bothered with Vine, entrepreneurs who wanted to be heard could easily
leverage Vine to broadcast their message in a very creative way.
Yes, six seconds seems like an extremely
short amount of time to “hook” your potential customers, but, hey, look at all
those Viners who showed an immense creativity with the time constraint. Who is
to say that a smart marketer could not become an overnight success with a
single Vine going viral? Besides, a skillful series of Vines would not go
unnoticed.
5. Talk to people in their
language.
Another issue that contributed to Vine’s
failure was that the platform had a lot of insider talk going on. “The app
generated countless memes, and grew increasingly self-referential over time, so
that a single six-second clip might reference a dozen previous hit Vines,” The
Verge suggests.
While it may be a side effect of creating a
strong community, you have to remember to never be self-contained. If you want
your message to be effective, you have to make it as easy as possible to
understand it.
If your language gets too technical, too
pretentious, or too “exclusive,” you are running a risk of not being
understood. And that doesn’t serve anyone, starting with you and your business.
6. Your offering should be unique.
The problem with Vine is that it lost its
appeal too fast. Yes, it was cool for the first year or so, but then the hype
died down and Vine didn’t offer any new exciting features that would
differentiate it in the market. Short videos? Snapchat and Instagram work for
those. Looping feature? Boomerang by Instagram has you covered. At the end,
there was no real differentiator and no real use for looping six-seconds
videos.
7. Promote, promote, promote.
Twitter’s fault was that it didn’t really
promote Vine in any way. After a sense of newness withered down, there were no
major attempts in pushing Vine. Clearly, Twitter has a lot going on right now
with their main platform, so they put Vine on the cruise-control mode.
However, to truly see if your product has any
potential, you have to promote it relentlessly. You have to continually improve
it, highlighting benefits. Your product will never reach its fullest potential
without your efforts.
It’s sad to see Vine go so fast, yet with the
latest state of things, it was more a matter of time. Twitter is trying to
figure its own course of actions and Vine wasn’t able to perfect its spiel on
its own.
Written by: Lesya Liu
Credit: Entrepreneur.com
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