The Ecosystem of a Social Media Post

(Vine is Dead, Right?)

Colleen TheisenSpecial Collections Outreach & Engagement LibrarianUniversity of Iowa@libralthinking

“Go Where Your Users Are”

University of Iowa Social Media Network

@UISpecColl

University of Iowa Social Media Network

@UISpecColl

• Looping video• Six seconds long• Easy to use recording

and editing tools

• Founded in 2012• Acquired by Twitter in 2012• Launched broadly in 2013• Libraries tested in 2013• Then quit

• University of Iowa Special Collections launched Jan 27, 2015• Over 1.9 Million views• Most of those views are not on

Vine

Launched in January 2015, @UISpecColl has 136 followers on Vine.

A Typical Post on VineWe drew from a YouTube meme of “box opening” videos to show six second clips of opening a new acquisition.

The Post:

Posted Friday, August 26, 2016 this post gained 36 views and two “likes” on Vine.

New Acquisition Opening “Years Yet Yesterday: An Abecedary, Minus Two Letters.” By Mark Addison Smith, 2015.

(One image per second of video)

Shared to TwitterNext the post was shared once to Twitter in the afternoon on August 26 where it gained 256 views and a reblog among our 2,600+ followers.

Twitter users have the option to turn off automatic play on videos so that you must push play to view it.

Shared to TumblrWe shared the post once to our 47,000 followers on Tumblr at 8pm on the 26th. The post automatically loops with no sound, like an animated GIF – a primary language for communicating on Tumblr.

End Result Back on Vine13,000 views in 24 hours.

Over the next two weeks the post gained 3,000 more views.

A YouTube Video Format

Reformatted for Vine

Shared to Twitter

In the GIF Language of Tumblr

Online Ecosystem

The “Videofication” of Social Media

• Vine (Owned by Twitter)• Periscope for live video (Owned by Twitter)• Facebook live video• New live video tools for YouTube• Twitter video monetization (launching soon – 70% revenue sharing)• LinkedIn experimenting with video for “influencers”• Snapchat• Instagram video and now “Stories”

Thoughts & Conclusions• “Go Where Your Users Are” still holds true, but the tools to make the

posts that you want might be found elsewhere.• Video is becoming a standard feature on social media sites.• Video shares well between sites.• However, the use of sound varies dramatically.• Captioning as a standard part of video workflow will be vital for sites

that do not play sound, and for accessibility.