Vine hasn’t died yet and Instagram won’t kill it

Ugo Eze is an inbound marketing consultant.

When Instagram integrated video into its application, many presumed that Vine would die shortly after. Well, Vine hasn’t met that fate, and since then it has only gotten stronger. Vine is very tight-lipped about its daily active users but from its most recent numbers, it has gained 27 million users since Instagram integrated video in June 2013. Here are the reasons Vine didn’t go anywhere when Instagram went to video:

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1. It’s a different platform

The feeds may have similar characteristics, and they both may have a popular page, but Vine and Instagram are totally different platforms. Vine is dedicated to video while Instagram is more of a platform to see what my friends are doing. I open Vine with the expectation to watch videos and laugh.

2. The ReVine feature

The ReVine (similar to Tumblr’s Reblog feature) button has been essential to the popularity of videos on Vine. The simple reason is with one button, you can have a video you like appear on your profile, which then allows everybody who is following you to see the video. It’s pure viral-ity. This single handedly has been one of the reasons popular Viners have been able to amass millions of followers in a short time span (even as short as 6 months).

3. Fifteen seconds is too long

When most people post a video on Instagram, I skip past them when scrolling even with the auto loading feature. Why? Fifteen seconds is really too damn long. It is. Vine’s six seconds pushes you to be creative and fit in all you can efficiently. Also, six seconds is not as short as you think; you can fit a lot into six seconds — and even tell whole stories — as proven by popular Viners. Instagram’s video feature is perfect for advertisers, but for users, it’s just too long.

4. Vine stars

Every popular social network has, one way or another, propelled some of its users to stardom, and Vine is no different. Vine has already made multiple people famous, and their following only continues to grow as they are being talked about on late-night TV, continuously featured on popular news blogs, and getting millions of views on YouTube for their compilation videos. There are even multiple Facebook fan pages dedicated to showing the best Vine videos. (This page has even hit 16 million fans.) One Viner even shut down a mall while trying to assemble a Vine meetup to interact with his fans.

As Vine continues to grow and do well, the blood in the water that many have reported can now be rewritten as the social media network “that got away and got stronger.” Vine does face other competition from the likes of Cameo and Mixbit, but as it did with Instagram, I’m sure it will pull through and find a way to standout.

Ugo Eze is an inbound marketing consultant with over seven years of digital marketing experience. He has experience with SEO, guerrilla marketing, online advertising (PPC), and inbound marketing strategies for small and large organizations. Follow him on Twitter @reachue.

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