Social Media Marketing is evolving again, thanks to the debut of video sharing on Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo sharing app.

The huge move by social media megastar Facebook, was an effort to break into the online video advertising market, one that Twitter-owned Vine has already had a great deal of success with.

With only a few weeks since the release, the significant drop in Vine shares is impossible to ignore. According to data from Topsy, which tracks Twitter sharing, Vine video sharing has dropped 70% on Twitter since Instagram’s video release (see graph below).

Companies, big and small, want to put their eggs into several baskets, especially when it comes to social media. Since most brands have already adopted Instagram for photo sharing, the addition of video has been strongly embraced. Within the first 24 hours of Instagram video availabilty, users uploaded more than 5 million videos.

As a social media marketing agency, we are getting lots of questions about the differences between the two applications. Both platforms enable mobile users to create and share short video clips. Vine allows for 6-second clips of video, while Instagram clips are significantly longer with 15 seconds per video.

Beyond the additional 9 seconds in length, the most popular advantage to using Instagram for video sharing are the 13 available filters to give each and every video a unique feel. Vine users are left to their own resources, such as lighting and exposure, if trying to achieve a vintage effect. Additional Instagram video-editing features include cover frame selection, clip editing, tap-to-focus, and most importantly, image stabilization capabilities.

While some see this as a leapfrog competition between Twitter and Facebook, others say Instagram and Vine are serving different audiences.

“Vine is like fast food, while Instagram video is more like eating in a nicer restaurant,” Ovum analyst Jan Dawson told PC World.

Regardless of the app you choose to delegate as your video sharing platform, keep these tips in mind:

1. Decide what your message is.
2. Simplify that message.
3. Give your customers a call to action (something for them to do).
4. Figure out how to visually convey that message.

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