vining your video

For those of you not familiar with it, Vine is the video tool that Twitter launched last year.  It provides 6 seconds of video on a mobile device with sharing and following and reshared the same way that tweets are. The opportunities here are tremendous from an engagement standpoint - how to get it started is the challenge.

Our approach to getting this started is going to be based upon our study abroad program this fall.  We have traditionally done study abroad blogging, starting 5 years ago with a standard blog.  2 years ago we switched to a photo blog and that took off in terms of audience engagement and interest in the blog.  What I am implementing this year is to tie that photo blog into the launch of the vine blog.

One of the biggest challenges that we face in the course of generating money for the study abroad program is educating our constituents regarding the value of studying abroad.  The vast majority of them did not have that opportunity as students and seem to respond with something between ambivalence and questioning why we are sending students on a weeks to months long vacation on their dime as donors.  The photo blog has helped and hurt in that regard because while the students do a great job taking images and sharing them, it is hard to distinguish in an image between the tourist viewing landmarks and the student learning about those same landmarks.

Vine provides the capability to change that conversation drastically. By allowing the student to not only show where they are but to include a short video of what they are doing there, the student can show the class they are with, the faculty and guest speakers who are providing the education and some version of their own thoughts on the trip.  In addition, the ability to interact with them in the similar fashion to twitter means that folks can ask questions and we can encourage video conversations.  As any of us who work in higher ed fundraising find, the more chance our potential donors have to speak with our students, the better the results become and vining your videos certainly provides that opportunity.