If you really want to make a splash in the social media waters, you should try making videos with the mobile app Vine!

Vine has more than 40 million registered users, that are telling their stories in short, continuously looping six-second videos.

Vine is much more than a shiny, new social toy. It’s got a lot more going for it than novelty. Vine presents brands with an innovative, surprisingly powerful way to take advantage of the fact that visual content performs well on social media. Here are  seven reasons why you should use Vine to build your brand.

1. It’s simple

All you need to do is hold your finger on the screen to record and take it off to pause. It’s that simple. You can record straight through uninterrupted or use the stop-motion feature to shoot your own impressively animated shorts.

2. It’s spur of the moment

The simplicity of Vine makes it possible for you to capture news as it’s happening without any preparation whatsoever.

3. It’s instructional.

You can share your secrets for doing what you do best, positioning yourself  as the expert.

4. It’s promotional.

Win your followers over with enough genuinely interesting looping video clips, and you’ve earned their loyalty. Run contests. Show off your team. Take viewers behind the scenes of your work place.

5. It’s measurable.

Not only do you see how many times people have liked your Vine videos, you can now get a count of how many times each of them has looped as well. Along with comments and revines, these two metrics provide you with a fairly good gauge for your clips’ popularity.

 

Should your business sign up for a Google Plus account?

My answer is YES! Why wouldn’t you be on the social network that is run by Google, the #1 search engine in the world and gateway to YOUR business?

By now, you should know I love using big-name brands as examples. H&M is one of my FAVORITE stores, so I will use them!

Miriam Tappert, Global Social Media Manager, explains that H&M’s goals for their Google Plus page was simple: “To be where our customers are, have a dialogue, and share the latest fashion.” She goes on to say, “We have chosen to focus on inspiration…nice images, films, and, of course, a lot of fashion.”

H&M uses video and photos frequently in posts, as visuals of their customers in H&M pieces. That is an effective way to promote fashion and lifestyle. They also links to product pages on their site to help convert social visitors to potential customers. And of course a no-brainer… they post great content. You can learn a lot from H&M’s use of Google Plus.

On top of those great takeaways, we must note:

The greater your visibility is on Google Plus, the better chance you have at high-level visibility in Google searches YOUR customers are conducting; google plus activity increases your website traffic flow PERIOD. It’s no wonder Google Plus (sometime referred to as “ghost town”) has seen a 33% increase in usage since July 2012. Get on, get posting, and get visible!