Vine is the newest app to sprout into the social media scene. The free mobile app is to video what Twitter is to text: a platform built around a content constraint that promotes creativity and viral sharing. Vine’s six seconds of video (and sound! Take that animated gifs!) creates a plethora of possibilities for rapid reach, engagement and influence. High profile Vines include everything from comedy…
to sports…
and even the White House!
Why Vine?
Blue Magnet has previously covered strategies and tactics for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Foursquare. With a robust market of social media apps, why should hotels consider adding Vine to their social media marketing mix? Social applications are developing into increasingly influential factors of consumers’ brand affinity and purchasing decisions as digital and mobile technology become more pervasive in our daily lives. A 2012 Nielson study of 28,000 global consumers found that the top two most trusted forms of media are earned media (word-of-mouth, recommendations from friends, etc.) and online consumer reviews. These two sources garnered a 92% and 70% trust rating respectively compared to approximately a 45% trust rating for traditional media such as television, magazines and newspapers. Consumers are listening to their friends and family and their friends and family are highly engaged in social media. Digital Marketing Ramblings has a post regarding recent (May 2013) social media usage stats. The numbers may shock you (hello 1.11 BILLION Facebook users)!
With this in mind, marketers need to focus on tactics and platforms which best reach their audience. Regardless of the target, video is the clear cut king when it comes to influence across social networks. A new study from Adobe reports social video engagement has risen to 70% from 42% the previous year. Video content accounts for 77% of all viral reach. Hubspot has posted an excellent infograph which shows that videos on Facebook are shared twelve times more than all text and link posts combined. As the Adobe report points out, offering more video should be the prime objective to fully realize social media potential.
Size It Up: The Good & The Bad of Vine
PROS
- Easy to use!
- Consumers love video
- Easily shared on Facebook and Twitter
- Guests generate buzz about your hotel
- Engaging content
CONS
- Challenging to consistently create good content
- Cannot edit what guests are saying
- Another channel to monitor and manage
Let’s Get It Started!
Download the app and start creating video content right away! When setting up a Vine account, a user can link their Twitter and/or Facebook account. Once registered, on the home screen, select the camera icon to begin. When the viewfinder opens, simply tap and hold the screen to begin recording. Release the screen to stop. After capturing six seconds of video, checkboxes allow you to easily integrate your snippet of video with your Twitter or Facebook profiles.
One Hotel’s Vine Success Story
The hospitality industry has already made its mark on the Vine scene. The Cavendish London Hotel’s #ValentineVine contest has been recognized as the first ever Vine contest:
The contest asked for romantic submissions via Twitter to @Cavendish_Hotel tagged with #ValentineVine. The winning Vine received an overnight stay at the London hotel along with cocktails, dinner, and breakfast. This contest was a great way to engage potential customers. It created a call to action, engaged consumers’ creativity, incorporated a popular holiday, and highlighted the property. In addition, it also generated a significant amount of international press, inherently creating powerful backlinks (from blogs like this one!) to the hotel’s website.
Wow! Neato! But How Can I Use Vine For My Hotel?
Vine’s fledgling landscape is still untapped. Your hotel marketing team can utilize this opportunity to showcase their imagination, the uniqueness of the property and become a pioneering leader of this social media channel. There are several additional ways in which hotels can differentiate themselves and exercise their creativity by maximizing Vine’s video platform:
- Renovations – Has your property recently undergone renovations? Provide a mini-tour or sneak peeks and build excitement for the new additions.
- In-House Restaurants – Do you have a restaurant you would like to highlight? Use Vine to showcase new dishes, weekly specials, Chef profiles, catering, or events recently hosted at the restaurant.
- Welcome Guests & Groups – Filming a “welcome” Vine for visiting conferences, business meetings, wedding receptions, or family reunions is a great way to show your hospitality, engage attendees, and hopefully receive shares in their social circles.
- Unique Selling Features – On a cold, snowy day, maybe your Denver hotel shows off the crackling fire in the lobby to warm guests up, on a hot day, maybe your resort would do a video of kids splashing in the pool – how else can your hotel show off their best assets and evoke envy on people who are not at the hotel?
- Live Events – Showcase live events at your hotel or bar to use for promotional material. Do you have a live band playing weekly? A themed happy hour during certain holidays like Cinco De Mayo or Halloween?
- Pet Policies – Are pets allowed at the hotel? Show this off with a video of pets checking in!
Be sure to include hastags on every Vine post! People can search for your posts (using tags such as #HotelName) directly on Vine as well as Twitter.
The Future of Vine
Although Vine was only launched in late January 2013, it has enjoyed a more rapid and sustained growth in its first four months than other less robust competitors. According to Onavo Insights, April alone saw Vine take nearly an 8% market share and a 96% active user increase from March! Similar offerings from Gifboomand Cinemagram have seen their user base steadily decline during this same period.
Active Vine users will stay on the rise if developers remain responsive and continue making improvements based on feedback from the community. For example, an April 29 update included user mentions and the much clamored for support of the iPhone’s front facing camera. At the writing of this post, Vine is the #3 free app on iTunes.
Vine is the next step in social media. The statistics support this–users crave and share videos! Many major hotel brands currently have Vine accounts, but beyond a couple initial posts, few are active. Local properties, such as Cavendish London Hotel, which utilize Vine in its infancy, will likely garner extra buzz and credibility for being early adapters. This novel new app, with the muscle of Twitter behind it, has the potential to be the next ubiquitous piece of the social media landscape.
Bringing It All Back Home
Consumers have always trusted friends and family when it comes to purchase recommendations, but with the increased reach of social media this source is becoming even more influential. Video is the most significant medium on social media when it comes to viral marketing. Users are drawn to brief, easily shared video clips. Vine is all of the above, essentially everything today’s social media users are looking for. Hotels can use the platform to highlight amenities, renovations, restaurant offerings, special events, and engage customers in contests, promotions, or reviews. Vine, with an appealing and engaging content offering, can raise the profile of your hotel, build a stronger reputation, start earning recommendations from travelers and, over time, drive more bookings!
