A few days ago saw the launch of Instagram video. It’s a very simple service, you download the app, tap to enter video mode and then take up to fifteen seconds of video. All very straight forward. It’s a move that has put the Facebook owned company in direct competition with Vine, the Twitter backed video app; a real time clash of the titans.
Instagram has taken the social media world by storm. Accompanying the launch, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom declared that, “over the past two and a half years, Instagram has become a community where you can capture and share the world’s moments simply and beautifully.” However, over the past two and a half years Instagram has been doing a lot more than that. Its rise to the top has been meteoric, with 2013 seeing Instagram reaching over 100 million active users.
Instagram offers its users an online photo/video sharing service coupled with social networking opportunities. Images and videos can be shared across a variety of platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. Distinctive features include a variety of available digital filters to add to your photo, and restrictions on photo shape, limiting users to a traditional square shape reminiscent of old Polaroid images.
This contrasts with their direct rival, Vine. Their service allows users to take a 6 second video, which is in keeping with the Twitters ethos, brief, succinct, easy to digest content for the masses. Vine will play your videos on a loop, whereas Instagram will play your video only once. Vine is expected to offer a counter-attack any day now via its own latest updates.
Customers will benefit from greater choice in how they share and interact online. Instagram’s new service will allow users to indulge in video sharing without the hassle of setting up and starting from scratch on Vine.
This shift towards video presents ever greater opportunities for businesses. It’s a great, free advertising platform for businesses, providing you with various avenues of pursuit whether. A 100 million users gives you a 100 million opportunities to sell, although obviously you would tailor and be niche in your client pursuits.
Video provides an excellent way to share what’s happening with your brand, not to mention it also gives more personality to your brand by projecting a moving image with the addition of sound, instead of just a basic photo. For the fun of it lets throw out some statistics; the average user spends 88% more time on a website with video; video has a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines.
Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Instagram accounts ensuring an integrated communications approach is used across the different social media networks.
With these tech giants battling it out for our affection, consumers and businesses alike are in for a real treat.