Why You Need to Develop a Vine Influencer Strategy Today

You’re going to start hearing a lot more about Vine in the coming months. As the most micro of the popular micro-video platforms, Vine is poised to become a vibrant space for brands, influencers, and consumers to connect in meaningful (albeit bite-sized) ways.

Earlier this week, Twitter announced the acquisition of Niche, a platform which provides analytics and a connection to brands for leading Vine content creators. The acquisition signals that Twitter is going to invest more of its attention to Vine, and continue to grow it as online video surges in popularity.

From the Niche blog, announcing the acquisition:

Today, Niche provides free, cross-platform analytics on desktop and mobile. In addition to the technology we offer, we’ve helped creators develop new revenue streams to support their budding careers, by facilitating partnerships with over 100 brands and agencies — themselves valuable members of the Niche community.

These 100 brands and agencies are about to experience a big boost in the support they receive when engaging with influencers on Vine – and you can bet that hundreds more are soon going to flock to the micro-video service.

By partnering with influential Vine users, advertisers have the opportunity to get their message to their audience through a source that their audience trusts. The goodwill and positivity that influencers build over time translates to the brands they endorse. This means that advertisers get to benefit from their influencers’ reputations, and their products and services will be received more warmly than if they were advertised through more traditional channels.

Influencer marketing is not necessarily new (think about the sports industry’s love-affair with superstar players), but Vine influencer marketing is relatively new – and there are a few important differences that advertisers should take note of.

First, influencers on Vine aren’t necessarily traditional “celebrities”. They’re everyday people who create interesting content that their audience is crazy for. For advertisers, this means that working with Vine influencers can be most cost-effective than working with big-name celebrities.

Second, the content that Vine influencers create – because it is visual in nature – lends itself well to brand integration. Showing a product unboxing or doing a six-second product review can be a quick, effective and budget-friendly way of reaching an engaged audience.

Third, like all social channels, Vine can offer advertisers great word of mouth opportunities. A single Vine, posted by an influential user, can travel to thousands of interested consumers in mere seconds. And if those consumers connect with the message, many will share it on Vine, Twitter, and other social channels. For many brands, this amplifies the message more than if they had posted the Vine to their own channel.

Twitter’s acquisition of Niche signals that the company will be focusing more on Vine moving forward. Businesses that develop relationships with Vine influencers now will reap the rewards down the line, as Vine continues to grow into a vital part of the digital video ecosystem.

(Selfie image via Shutterstock)