Withering on the Vine?
Can’t string together 140 characters? Help is at hand with Twitter’s launch of Vine, its new video sharing service. Essentially Vine lets you take 6 second videos and post them automatically via your Twitter feed. Launched last week, it provides another option for Twitter’s 500 million users to share their lives with their followers and friends.
On the face of it Vine is a nice idea as it capitalises on the power of video and opens up another front in Twitter’s battle to increase usage ahead of its predicted future flotation. And another revenue stream – I can see Twitter using Vine to encourage brands to interact with customers by sharing video content, solving simple customer service queries with how to films and even introducing a paid for service that gives greater control over the length of clips.
But there’s a number of issues that I believe will hold back Vine’s growth. Firstly, it isn’t integrated into Twitter itself but is a separate app, currently only available for Apple devices. This adds a level of complexity to the process – there’s nothing to stop other video services providing competition. And not launching an Android app at the same time as Apple removes a significant part of the market – while Twitter says Android is on its way, it looks slack not to have both issued at once.
Secondly, each clip may be 6 seconds, but it is on a constant loop (like an overlong animated GIF) which can be pretty tedious to watch, even if the content itself is interesting. Think of it as a moving picture, not a YouTube video.
And finally there’s what’s on Vine clips. Twitter boss Dick Costolo launched the service with a film of himself making steak tartare, but given that porn drives most internet innovation, it didn’t take long for more explicit content to arrive. The initial lack of filtering meant that X-rated videos began to fill Vine, culminating in one being chosen as ‘editor’s pick’ on the home screen of the app. All rather embarrassing for Twitter, but surely something that could have been predicted if they’d thought things through. Had they not looked at ChatRoulette?
To be fair to Twitter it has now banned searches for explicit content and deleted some porn, but automatically identifying and filtering pornography is notoriously difficult so it will be kept busy moderating clips for some time to come.
So, will Vine wither or grow? At the moment the jury’s out – it doesn’t have the safeguards to encourage mass market adoption (or the reach with just an iOS app) but if Twitter prunes away the porn it may yet create a new way for consumers and brands to share engaging content.
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Social media and the sales funnel
Due to its massive growth companies are flocking to social media. In today’s world you can’t be a self-respecting marketer without a Facebook page, Twitter handle, YouTube channel, LinkedIn profile, blog, Pinterestboard etc.
facebook (Photo credit: sitmonkeysupreme)
This is all very well – social media provide a completely new channel that lets your brand interact with consumers in a genuine conversation. However there’s not a lot of thought (or rigour) going into the social media presence of a lot of companies. Some are simply chasing follower numbers, despite the fact that these can be easily bought and others are launching campaigns (like the Waitrose Twitter hashtag project) which seem doomed to attract only ridicule.
Companies need to take a step back and work out where social media is going to help them. If you’re selling a toilet cleaner is it worth having a Facebook page – will people really think it is cool to Like a bottle of bleach? It is time for marketers to put their puppyish enthusiasm to one side and look at some basic marketing and sales concepts.
When it comes to generating sales there’s a well recognised marketing acronym called AIDA, standing for:
- Attention/Awareness – i.e. attracting the consumer
- Interest – piquing their interest by focusing on benefits
- Desire – making them want what you’ve got
- Action – getting them to take a positive step such as purchase
Essentially lots of social media marketing is focusing on the first point, but doesn’t have a strategy to move people through the rest of the process. I think marketers are getting confused by the speed and accessibility of social media to think that you can skip the middle sections and go straight to Action. In some cases consumers do work like that – a tweet with a special offer on a new film/book/CD is a straightforward transaction, but these are the exception rather than the rule and merely replicate what you are doing through other channels.
Building interest and engagement with your brand takes time – you need to create a community, listen to your consumers and deliver sustained benefits to them. A money off voucher may be good for short term sales, but isn’t building long term loyalty (and who’s to say they wouldn’t have bought your product anyway?)
So marketers need to take a step back and ask themselves an honest question. Do consumers want to have a conversation either with or about your brand? Would they talk about it positively down the pub or is it just something that they buy because the toilet needs disinfecting? It could be that you don’t need that all singing, all dancing Facebook page and you should focus on other offline channels. Less sexy (and not as exciting on your CV) but there could well be better ways of connecting with consumers and driving sales.
Will the internet kill the TV star?
Last month streaming service Netflix entered the UK to great fanfare and with a stated aim to challenge the likes of Sky when it comes to winning TV subscribers. A nice soundbite, but one that got me thinking about where we’ll get our ‘TV’ content from in the future. Obviously internet streaming companies such as Netflix and Lovefilm (and even Sky themselves) are now pitching themselves as the savvy choice for those who want to sign up and download the latest shows and films, often before they make it to TV.
However often that same content is available through other channels, ranging from iTunes to that old staple, the DVD boxset. So what can internet only services do to differentiate themselves, apart from price? There’s a lot of talk about creating their own content, from both Netflix and established brands such as YouTube but you need to either be spending big on stars or sporting events to stand out or focus on established shows that are already hits. Given the power of the likes of Sky, which can simply create new channels to maximise the impact of its content (as it has in F1), it will be a tough ask to muscle in. Just ask BT which saw its Vision service comprehensively outmarketed by Sky when it tried to go head to head.
Before I’m accused of being a Luddite, I do think Netflix will be successful enough. People do want to access TV content over the internet, and either play it direct on their internet-connected TV
Image via CrunchBase
or through tablet or laptop. Just look at the tremendous success of the BBC iPlayer and other TV catchup services to show how, promoted properly, viewers will flock to an easy to use solution.
Where the real opportunity is going to come is in super-services that make it easy for mass market consumers to access whatever programme or film they want, when they want. Consumers don’t care if it is on Netflix or Sky, just that they can click, pay automatically and watch. Essentially it has to be as simple as surfing to another channel without having to register or download software. And it has to span multiple channels – so you can watch the same content on your TV, laptop or mobile device wherever you may be. Get that right, build a brand and that will be the platform for control of future TV.
Social Media – what’s the worst that can happen?
- Image via Wikipedia
It’s the time of year for the publication of Top 10 lists – from the worst gadgets of 2010 (though not sure that Google Wave should technically count), through Top 10 Tweets, to my own personal favourite Top 10 Weirdest New Animals of 2010.
Leafing through Marketing Magazine’s Top 10 Marketing Mishaps it is obvious that for certain marketers 2010 has been a year to forget. ITV switching to an advert when England scored one of their all too rare World Cup goals, Eurostar’s inability to communicate when its trains were stuck in the Channel Tunnel and MAC’s idea to base a new cosmetics collection on a town in Mexico famous for high rates of female murder all stand out in the hall of shame.
What struck me though was the growing number of social media faux pas – from Nestle pressuring YouTube to remove a Greenpeace ad that criticised its sourcing of palm oil – and then heavy-handedly policing its Facebook page, to Dr Pepper’s inappropriate takeover of Facebook status updates. There were plenty more that didn’t make the top 10, such as homophobic tweets from Vodafone amongst others.
And pretty much all of these cock-ups came about from not understanding social media and the consequences of wading in and getting involved without thinking things through. Despite what expensive social media consultants may tell you, a lot of these crises could have been averted with a bit of common sense and planning. Time for marketing departments to put ‘Create social media guidelines and crisis management plans’ at number one on their list of New Year’s resolutions.
2018 World Cup – the digital dimension
So after what feels like years of campaigning, the hosts for the 2018 football World Cup will be announced this afternoon in Zurich.
Given that voting rests with the 22 men of the FIFA Executive Committee, you’d think that wide-scale marketing doesn’t have a large part to play in bid success or failure. But aside from glad-handing the FIFA dignitaries on a one-to-one basis, building a long-term marketing campaign that reflects brand values is going to be essential to the winner.
Witness the incredible effort that has gone into the digital side of the England bid. Designed to provide an opportunity for fans around the world to show their support and interact with the bid, it is integral to the bid premise “England United, the World Invited”. I’d say the stats alone show it has done an amazing job – over 300,000 fans from 170 countries have joined its Facebook group, 2.2 million have registered their support and 6,000 follow the bid on Twitter. And that’s ignoring the downloadable iPhone app, wallpapers, YouTube channel et al.
It really delivers on the key aim of showing FIFA the depth of support for England’s bid both at home and around the world. Let’s hope that at 3pm today, all England’s efforts, on- and offline, will be rewarded…………
Related articles
- World Cup 2018 and 2022 decision day – live! | Paul Doyle and Steve Busfield (guardian.co.uk)
- England ‘will host first-class Cup’ (mirror.co.uk)
- Prince William to make final plea to Fifa executives in bid for 2018 World Cup (dailymail.co.uk)
Chris Measures
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