Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Two years ago, Twitter-owned Vine was growing like kudzu. It was widely embraced by both consumers and marketers who sought to push the envelope with creative six-second clips. But the explosion of new video formats on Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube, which all now boast sizable scale, has caused top brands to quietly slip away.

"Over time, it became difficult for many marketers to achieve scale [on Vine]," explained Tyler Hissey, senior digital strategist at Hill Holliday. "In the last six months or so, brands have started to de-emphasize Vine as a channel because of the targeting capabilities on all these other platforms."

Data is proving this out. Video analytics firm Tubular Labs reviewed Vine, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube accounts of 40 major brands, including Coca-Cola, Target and Dunkin' Donuts. Between September and November, marketers posted 2,500 social videos, and Vine contributed just 113 of those clips—equivalent to 4 percent of branded content.

Only 13 of the 40 brands posted to Vine during the third quarter of 2015, down from 21 in the first quarter of this year, Tubular found....

Pause your day, and take a look—or three or four—at these brilliantly crafted Vines. Marketers are finding a way to tap into the short-form nature of the medium by working with Viners who have found success creating carefully edited works.

"Stop motion animation has become an incredibly attractive way of advertising for brands and marketers who are increasingly turning to micro advertisements to reach mobile users," explained Rob Fishman, co-founder of the technology platform Niche.

Niche connects social media content creators on 19 different platforms (including Facebook, YouTube, Vine and Instagram) with brands. The company compiled the list after considering the number of followers each Vine user had and the number of branded engagements they produced. Not all the ad work had to be set up through the Niche platform to be considered....