You might think, “What the heck are you even talking about? There is not even a competition between YouTube and Vine; YouTube trumps all!”. But..I can make you think differently. Even though YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, does it cater to your marketing needs?
And what can you effectively do with six seconds of a video? These are all things I am going to lay out on the line for you.
First off let's do some background work….
1) YouTube:
- YouTube was found in February of 2005 with the intent of sharing originally created materials. Which now has developed into a world wide web takeover with everything from music videos, movie trailers, marketing, viral videos, and originally created content.
- YouTube has 6 billion hours of video watched monthly. This is crazy right!? So you think it’s a great idea to post to YouTube then, huh? More traffic also equals more clutter!
- Videos can be short or long, up to 15min. When you want to publish a video that is longer, you need to take some extra steps. ComScore reported that in January, the duration of the average video was 4.4 minutes.
- For advertising on YouTube, you can have a video channel with subscribers. How YouTube ad videos work is that you only pay when people click and watch your video. To get people to watch your videos, it all relies on your description and how well you advertise the video through social media, blogs, website and such.
- Some perks of YouTube are that it is easy to manage, you can upload lengthy videos, have long descriptions for your videos, can POSSIBLY attract a lot of traffic. As well, you can use YouTube analytics with your ads.
2) Vine:
- Vine launched in June of 2012. It was then bought out by micro-blogging site Twitter for $30 million in October of 2012. The main purpose for Vine was to share short video clips through a convenient app.
- Vine wanted to stand out so they made their videos a “Visual Micro-blog”. Meaning, their videos are only 6 second clips. You can only record if you are touching the screen which allows for multi-shots/clips for a fun effect. As well, you can customize each video to your preference and add a description with hashtags.
- Uploads into its own, very user friendly, app. Then you can choose to share to Twitter, websites, Facebook ect. #HASHTAGS are VERY IMPORTANT here!
So what is the bottom line?? Which will benefit my business more, your asking? Well, it all depends on what type of business you are trying to market, and who your target audience is.
Suit and Tie:
YouTube is for the more “formal business”. Their videos are quite long, traditional, informational, commercials, and if they want to advertise to people in an older demographic.
Google Boost:
The really good thing about YouTube is that it can help Google rankings. The only way to get Google to rank the business via YouTube is if people actually watch/click your videos or have really good descriptions with keywords. As well, you can also back-link your YouTube page, and videos, from the company website to increase traffic.
A+ for Analytics:
YouTube is also good for analytics. Like I have said, you can get analytics with you account to track how well your videos are doing. This really helps a business see where their market is going and what traffic is going back to their sites.
Hip and Vine!:
Vine is for businesses that are targeting the young demographic between the ages of 13-25. The business that uses Vine is very trendy, and creative, and likes to be on top of social media trends. Since, according to 7th Chamber, 5 Tweets per sec contain a Vine, or a link to a vine. As well, Vine only has 13 million users so traffic is a lot less and it is easier to get your videos viewed. 7th Chamber also stated that a branded Vine video is 4 times more likely to be viewed then a regular branded video.This is helpful to the companies that are smaller and get squashed by YouTube.
Not The Average Commercial:
Vine is not used for businesses that need to advertise their commercials or testimonials like traditional users, but to advertise their culture, products, sneak peaks of what they are up to, re-vine’ing funny vines or relevant vines, and just little snippets of their business.
You can create Vine Commercials, which are again 6 seconds of frames to get a point across to your audience. These business that use Vine want their messages out there in a very short and quick form because that is what our society is, they want what they want quickly and simply.
What is Your Buyer Persona?
It also comes down to the user that is on your website, or social media page, and they see a vine or they see a 4 minute long YouTube video; what are they going to watch?
People, unless they are totally submersed into a certain brand, product, an idea, or looking to purchase an expensive/high risk item, will not watch 4+ minute long videos. They want their quick fix.
Here are some popular campaigns from YouTube and Vine: (Just to see the comparison and what is the best option for you)
YouTube:
Kmart
Zac and Obama – Affordable Care Act (Full Video Here)
Dove
Vine:
Dunken Donuts
Samsung
Starbucks
Honda
Since social media for businesses is important and according to NeoMobile, two thirds of online traffic will be video by 2017, so you have to really think about what platform is going perform best for you.
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