Lessons We Can All Learn From Vine's Farewell

By now, you've surely heard the news about Vines death. While there have been multiple social media platforms that have come and gone, none seem to have had quite the rise and fall that we have witnessed with Vine. But why did this happen? Observing the collective reasons to why a successful social media platform like Vine could fail provides valuable insight for both aspiring social media sights and businesses alike.

The Myriad of Warning Signs

Vine launched in 2013, three years after Instagram, which started in 2010. Originally, Instagram was a visual only social platform. Twitter-owned the brief text space, Facebook was a place for everything, and Instagram saw an opportunity to own a strictly visual space. Instagram was so successful it only took Facebook two years to buy the company. In that entire flurry, there was one medium that had not been capitalized on yet, video. At the start, Vine only offered 6-second video clips that would automatically loop over and over and there goal was a Twitter-style message in video format. However, against their intentions, Vine quickly became an outlet for creativity. This was their first warning sign.

1. Misunderstanding Your Clientele 

Where a brief update worked well for Twitter, the mode and medium did not line up for Vine. Twitter is considered the world's watering hole, and being first and fast are crucial elements. When it comes to video you are inescapably thrown into a visual and auditory world. This creates as many challenges as it does opportunities. Maybe you jumbled your words, or your hair doesn't look right so you have to reshoot. Once all the effort has been put into getting your clip just right, the last thing you want is for your content to be lost in a Twitter-style storm of constant updates. Even from their early beta testing of the app, the creative aspect of the app was appealing to people. 

Your Take-Away:

The market is the market, it doesn't want what you want, it already has its own priorities. No matter how much you try and force or coerce your market to bend to your will, it's not going to happen. It could be a sign that you need to change your product or strategy, or it could be that you are targeting the wrong market all-together. As a business, your responsibility is to gain a clear and unbiased understanding of what your market wants from your product or services. 

2. No Competitive Advantage

Initially, Vine had the competitive advantage in that they were the only social media platform that focused on video, but it didn't take long for that to change. Instagram soon added a video feature that allowed for over twice the length of Vine's videos. In turn, this put the brakes on Vines growth in a big way. Vine saw their peak in 2014 when 3.64 percent of Android users were opening the app by the middle the year, and by the end of the same year that percentage dropped to 0.66. Vine had failed to move quickly enough to keep people on their platform. Why would someone with an established Instagram audience shift to Vine if there was no clear advantage?

Your Take-Away:

While it was possibly inadvertent, Vine ended up with a segmented market whereas Instagram had mass market appeal. Vine was a relatively late entry into a growing segment, but they operated in a very similar format. Their competitive advantage was not clear or strong enough to prevent people from choosing another product, in this case, platform. Instagram offered a bigger user base, an existing level of comfort with the platform, and more creative room. This gave people more reasons to make videos on Instagram, gave them better reach from the start and created a broader range of opportunities. You didn't have to be as creative to make 15-second videos work compared to 6-second videos. If your business is intentionally targeting a niche market, you have to make sure that your offering is unique enough to prevent customers leaving for a bigger brand. Consider Red Bull, you'd be crazy to compete with Coca-Cola and try to introduce your own cola beverage this late in the game, but Red Bull focused on and owned their market space. They achieved the first place positioning of energy beverage, in what was essentially a decades-old market of soft-drinks. 

3. Understanding Market Movers

There is an interesting phenomenon within social media that doesn't always seem to get enough attention. The celebrity. We often think of social media personalities as people desperate to get their 15 minutes, but there is a crucial element we miss if that is all we think. Social media is a content platform, like the newspaper, radio, and television. All of those previous platforms have key players that keep us coming back for more. Whether it's a writer for the New York Post whose pen always keeps us drawn in, a radio personality that never fails to shock, or a TV star whose acting takes us out of our own lives for the next 30 minutes, we all need anchors. The same is true for social media. Let's be honest, while we enjoy being able to stay in-touch with friends on social media, there are only so many workout, dinner, pet, and selfie pictures that we can take in a given day. We need good content. Remember, it's all about escapism and information. Two things that most of your friends don't really provide. This is why social media personalities are so important. By constantly producing content that we love to consume and look forward to seeing the latest release of, it keeps us coming back for more. While Vine was very successful at creating celebrities initially they failed big in a couple ways. Primarily they did not have a strong enough platform to keep content exclusive to Vine, and secondly, they failed to develop a strong enough discover feature for new users to find great personalities.

Your Take-Away:

Your team is your greatest asset. That may seem like a stretch, but this issue comes down to a misjudgment of values. It wasn't Vines platform that brought on initial success as much as it was the great content being produced by early influencers. By not providing an environment for those personalities to thrive they missed a great opportunity. Similarly, in your own business, this could break down in a few different ways. Initially, you may have key players on your team that are being overlooked, if you don't give Michael Jordan the ball, then you’re not going to win games. It's as simple as that. Some of the best business people credit their strength in their ability to build teams and put people in the right places. Feedback is crucial in business and only good news is bad news. CEO disease affects all levels of management, so you have to bite the bullet and realize that negative feedback is a great opportunity. If you don't know what you are doing wrong, or what you could do better, then you'll miss areas to improve that could be game-changing. It's possible that if Vine had invested more in their platforms personalities or gotten more feedback from them, they might have had the chance to differentiate in a way that made Vine content unique for the long run.

Wrapping Up

There are many valuable insights that can be taken away from the rise and fall of Vine. At the core of every issue is leadership. Approximately only 20% of people are comfortable with making decisions and only 10% actually enjoy it. So it's no wonder that good leadership is rare. Your self-awareness is crucial to making sure that you form the right leadership team and that your team is able to complement each other's weaknesses. With the right team in place moving fast, taking risks, and gaining painful feedback isn't always as difficult. Knowing what sets your company apart and strategizing effectively are your biggest responsibilities, and the insight you may need could be closer than you think.

To Your Best Online!

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Ingrid Griffin, Internet Marketing Consultant. Blue Dress? Marketing, an Internet Marketing Company headquartered in Knoxville, TN. Internet Marketing Developed, Implemented and Managed to Full Circle! Organic Internet Search Engine Guru. Turn Key Internet Optimization Programs Placing You Everywhere and Anywhere You Need to Be Online?

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