On Thursday 24th January 2013, Twitter launched Vine: a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos. Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity. Posts on Vine are about abbreviation — the shortened form of something larger. They’re little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life. They’re quirky, and Vine think that’s part of what makes them so special.

It will be interesting to see how brands use Vine. Social media is so widespread that any brand who doesn’t jump on this bandwagon will literally be kicking themselves in months to come.

Why use Vine?

• show off your products and services
• offer a behind the scenes look at your employees/offices etc.
• provide a 6 second interview clip to entice fans into watching the whole thing

If you work in social media, you will know you have a very small window of opportunity to capture users attention. Content needs to be unique, have a personality and make a user WANT to show their friends and family by sharing it.

The social media landscape is changing so rapidly that I think it is really important for brands to understand how they interact with their publics and consequently how encourage engagement.

With a powerhouse like Twitter behind it, I think Vine will be around for a while.

Check out some of the short videos which have appeared so far…

[tweet https://twitter.com/CosmopolitanUK/status/294850525063688194]

[tweet https://twitter.com/Malibu_Rum/status/294963452416520192]

[tweet https://twitter.com/dkny/status/295644057378648064]

[tweet https://twitter.com/topgold/status/295609307213492224]

[tweet https://twitter.com/professorgreen/status/295270284720750592]

Vine is currently available on the iPhone and iPod touch. You can download it for free from the App Store.

Love Niamh x

Allen Solly launched the new ‘Friday Dressing’ clothing collection through a pretty innovative billboard in India – using Twitter!

The billboard held 60 shirts; hiding the new collection picture behind it. The brand tweeted using a hashtag, #RainingSolly Fridays are hot because etc., and people were invited to tweet using it. The hashtag changed every 15minutes and the fastest tweeter won an Allen Solly shirt that was pushed randomly, by a solenoid, off the billboard.

This clever campaign was livestreamed on the Allen Solly Facebook and using the hashtag #RainingSolly.

Combining a PR stunt, campaign launch and integrating social media is always a win!

Love Niamh x