The marketing trend for 2014: short messages, great impact

Everything has to go faster and be smaller – also in content marketing. The watchword for 2014 is short, which means: Vine, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram video and Snapchat. But there are a few pitfalls to avoid...

Nowadays, users switch increasingly more often to fast, short media, and brands are therefore forced to follow this trend. Because they need to be where users are. This is why 2014 will be the year of short media: an increasing number of brands will be using Twitter, Vine, Instagram, Instagram video and the most recent platform, Snapchat, to reach users.

However, short means really short. Sometimes, a brand has less than 6 seconds, like with Vine, or 140 characters, like with Twitter, to spread a message. So, reaching people who use these media in an efficient manner requires quite a lot of talent. The mood has even become more important than the product itself. But when a brand succeeds in doing this, with the help of a skilled digital agency or an in-house communication department, success is assured. Users who interact with brands via the social media are more emotionally involved with these brands, and spend between 20 and 40 percent more than other users, as indicated in a recent report by Bain & Company.

A few examples from the US illustrate this very well. The fast-food chain Taco Bell, for instance, managed to create a trendy atmosphere for the brand using Twitter, where people post tons of comments in response to the messages published by the company. This is how it has generated massive buzz to make of its newest product, the Doritos Locos Tacos, the most successful product launch ever: in the first 10 weeks, 100 million of them were sold, and the mother company increased its turnover by 15 % in the quarter of the launch.

Other examples of successful campaigns concern smaller brands, like a coffee house that created a buzz by posting Vine videos of baristas who drew the famous leaf in the coffee foam. As for designer Rebecca Minkoff, she promoted her collection via Snapchat: she showed all her new creations using 10-second video fragments.

Fast videos, spreading fast… which can unfortunately also turn into a fiasco in no time. The secret lies in the tone you use, the reactions you receive, and most of all, being able to tell where to draw the line between a joke and offensive remarks. This will probably lead to new career opportunities for people who will have to strike a balance between a diplomat and a stand-up comedian!