At NLEResources.com, we aim to provide you with the latest ways that you can reach your audience and enhance your programming and marketing. It follows, that we’ve written posts showing you how you can best use Instagram or Raise Your Visibility Using Pinterest! In this post, we are going to explore how you can use Vine, a new six-second video app, to attract people to your events and causes. Vine has skyrocketed in popularity and has becomes the number one app in the US App Store! And so, with all of those eyeballs and clicks now headed to Vine, it’s important to know how you and your organization can leverage this new online and mobile tool.

Case in point: Mashable.com recently reported, that Dawn Siff landed a job at the Economist Group’s commercial unit as a project manager, thanks in part to her “Vine Resume” (see also this link that relates how employers are finding qualified employees from a single tweet!).

Still skeptical and unsure of how a six-second video app will really help you draw in people to your events and trigger interest in your causes?

That’s OK. When Twitter first launched in 2006, many were unsure how to use it and asked, “what was the point of a medium that only sends out 140 character messages at a time?” Today, Twitter is one of the most popular and widely used sites on the web, and the place that all news and information breaks first (for instance, the first alert that a bomb went off at the Boston Marathon was via Twitter).

So why should you care about Vine?

Vine has the potential to be a pretty useful, quick, and simple way to get your video message out to the masses. Jon Thomas, the noted director of communications at Story Worldwide, and founder of Presentation Advisors, explained (see here) that Vine has emerged in a world where YouTube is the 1,000-pound gorilla in the room. It allows you to quickly record and upload a video into a dedicated stream that is easily consumed. This echoes a similar sentiment held by Ben Lichtenwalner who wrote that, “Similar to Twitter – the value is in the constraint and the standard. On YouTube, I must wade through volumes of long content to find the meat of the matter. Here, with Vine, content creators are obligated to get to the heart of the matter in six-seconds.”

Best of all, people aren’t expecting you to “go all out” and have your video look like “a thousand bucks!” This can be a great thing for any nonprofit that operates on a “shoe string budget.” What makes both Twitter and Vine unique, is that users expect and appreciate simplicity. After all, they have limitations on how much content users can generate (Twitter only allows 140 characters and Vine only allows for six-seconds of video at a time).  While this might seem constricting at first, if Twitter has proven anything, it’s that the statement found in Pirkei Avos (1:15) that teaches us that we can do more with less words, rings all the more so true in today’s fast moving world.

Below, are some ideas of how you can use Vine.

Application for Rabbis and Educators

1) Nowadays, more and more publishing houses are creating “book trailers” (see for example the book trailers for The Queen You Thought You Knew: Unmasking Esther’s Hidden Story by Rabbi David Forhman and for Social State: Choose Your Role Wisely by Esteban Contreras). If books are being marketed using trailers today, we can only imagine that a “shiur trailer” can help you when it comes to educating the People of the Book! Your trailer can quickly show the seforim that you’ll be using or highlight concepts in the form of moving graphical previews or tidbits that you’ll be discussing in your next lecture series. See the example below:

 

 

 

In so doing, your Vine video will serve as a “shiur trailer,” or a commercial if you will, to draw people into your next set of classes. A flyer is certainly nice; and a picture does say 1000 words—but a video is even all that more effective. This idea is certainly worth considering, because it’s not something that’s going to cost a fortune or take up more than six-seconds. On the plus side,  you may see great feedback in return!

2) Using Vine is so simple, that the company has even made it easy for anyone to piece together short video scenes. As such, you can use Vine to create “how-to’s” and (short) step-by-step explainers. In fact, as noted here, people today are happy to digest and share “short-form” blogs, pictures, video, etc. And so, people would be all that more inclined to actually view multiple short clips on one subject of interest.

3) You can also use Vine to send a quick message that would remind your students when Shabbos starts, what day of the Omer it is, or simply a nice greeting like this one below:

Vine can also be a great way for you to have your students spread the word about your organization through grassroots marketing. It’s always best when other students hear from their own peers how, “the rabbi is so great!” Here’s a couple of ideas of how you can try and get your students, who very well may be using Vine, to talk about your classes and events. You can even offer an incentive, by announcing that the person who creates the best Vine video for your organization, will win a free gift card or special invite to your house!

Application for Students

1) If you aren’t up for the task of making your own Vine video, there’s no reason that you can’t try and turn to a student who is already on Vine, and ask them to make a quick Vine video highlighting the venue or the tasty sushi and great food available to all that attend your events. In fact, doing so will give you something other than a Jewish topic to discuss with this student, and may allow him/her to feel that you are someone who they can relate to and approach further to discuss matters of greater importance.

2) Students can get on Vine to let people know who is the next guest speaker coming to campus, recap a great Shabbaton, etc.

3) You can reach out to students and ask them to use Vine to share their feedback from your event or promote your trip to Israel. See how USA Today is now turning to Vine and asking its readership for feedback below:


Coming Up Next…
In the next and final installment of this post, we will explore moe tips and tools and discover some tried and proven methods to help you consider if Vine is for you and if so how you can best leverage this new medium.

 

UPDATE:

Part 2: Everything a Rabbi and Educator Needs to Know About Vine!

 

 

 

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