Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Stepping Up with Social Media

I spent the last couple of days researching a new tool in the social media hub that allows users to post videos on their profile. The application to pioneer this tool is called Vine and it was recently acquired by Twitter when it launched earlier in January. This was my first time hearing about Vine but there was already of large community of avid viners who were experimenting and posting tons of awesome vines. I specifically looked at how vine was being used as a branding tool for fashion companies because I wanted to see how JewelMint could utilize Vine to build a stronger brand. During my search, I saw and learned so many ways that brands utilize Vine and realized how it is becoming more and more necessary for companies to keep up with the exponentially rising social media tools.

One of the amazing aspects of Vine is that your videos can only last six seconds. To some, this may be limiting, but brands can actually take advantage of this limitation. One of the key factors of social media is that it encourages a fast paced society. Its users are constantly looking on their mobile devices and refreshing their feeds for quick and new content. The six second vines take into account the short lived attention span of its audience. This is better for the brand because the audience is more willing to come on their vine profile knowing that the clip will only last six seconds. It also helps the brands stay focused on just one subject per vine. Many brands like Urban Outfitter and ASOS have used the Vine app to characterize their brand and build a more human relationship with their customers. They post silly videos of what goes on in their office to interactive and creative demonstrations of their products. It brings the consumers closer to the process of how the product is made and builds stronger brand loyalty when done correctly.

After researching the different techniques, my supervisor asked me to create my own vine to post on the JewelMint vine page. Because I had never created a vine before, I was immediately stressed out and was scared that I might mess everything up. But I took the challenge as a learning experience and I thought of an idea for my first vine. It was obviously not as complex and professional as the amazing vines that I had seen on other profiles, but it still attempted to display the JewelMint products in an engaging way that would hopefully catch the user’s attention. I still have a lot of skills to learn and hone but this was a great start. I didn’t have much interest in the social media outlets before, but working at BeachMint for the past few weeks has definitely opened my eyes to the amazing things that can be done through social media. Instagram and Facebook came out with a new insta-video application today to compete with Twitter and Vine’s functions so I’ll have to see how users will begin to react to this new change. Nevertheless, this has become an incredible learning experience for me and I will continue to keep up with the exciting opportunities that social media has offered to our developing society today.