Twitter Video: More Than 6 Seconds…

Do you remember Vine? Vine was a way to create quick 6 second snippets of video and put them on Twitter. I sort of thought of it as the Haiku of online video marketing. What could you really convey in a tiny amount of time. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and the tiny Vines did manage to convey a lot.

But… I still felt like Vine wasn’t worth it to me because it took me too much time and effort to pare down my message to its very barest essentials.

Twitter has given us some breathing room!

Twitter now allows 30 second videos. And… good news for you, very few people are using them yet. So, your mini-masterpieces will really grab some eyeballs.

If you are a big twitter user – this is big news.

For right now, the twitter video app is available on Android and iPhone. The nice thing about it is that it includes an editor, so you can shoot and then only include the good parts 🙂 You can create videos from your phone, or upload them from your hard drive. So, it is possible to use the same video you use for Twitter, on YouTube, Facebook, etc.

And the best news of all is that Twitter is reporting that the engagement with videos is about 2.5% greater than regular posts.

Here are a few quick ideas from Twitter on how to use Twitter videos in your business.

1. Use video to help people get to know, like and trust you.
2. Show how your product or service helps people. For coaches, or people with products that are harder to “show” – include testimonials and referrals.
3. Create a video that tells a story. Your video should have a beginning, middle and an end rather than being a straight sales pitch.
4. Make them entertaining. Can you make your audience laugh?
5. Include higher profile people. Can you include quick interviews at an event? Or even portions of your podcast?

Watch TV commercials to give yourself some ideas. The length is about the same.

Want step by step instructions on how to include videos on your Twitter feed, check out this excellent post on Twitter Video from Buffer.