Vine, we hardly knew ya

The Twitter owned social network Vine has announced that it will be shutting down its app in the coming months because it cannot sustain profitability.

Twitter purchased Vine in 2012 for $30 Million before it even debuted and the app sharply rose to popularity within weeks of its official launch in 2013.

At the end of 2015, the app had over 200 Million active users and no advertising model to support the brands that wanted access to those users.

Surprisingly Vine never even created a premium advertising model, which apps like Instagram and Pinterest tested before opening up their advertising platform to the masses.

During my time leading social strategies for clients, I steered away from suggesting Vine as a marketing channel because there was no viable measurement. Vines play automatically in the feed and there’s no guarantee anyone is actually watching the video all the way through. If you cannot show value past the view count, how can you identify if it is successful.

For digital marketing, being an early adopter of the shiny new toy can be beneficial in the begging, but as the platform grows out of its infancy so does the time and effort needed to be spent on creating unique and relevant content.