Let the Instagram vs. Vine Video Battle Begin!

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Last Thursday, Facebook introduced a new way to share 15-second videos on Instagram. Today, new data from Unruly Media has found the number of tweets containing a 6-second looping video from Vine has almost doubled in just two months.

Meanwhile, the most recent iTunes Chart of free apps shows Vine ranked #7 and Instagram ranked #8.

In other words, let the battle between Video on Instagram and Vine begin!

To build momentum, a post on the Instagram Blog noted a couple of days ago, "Within the first 8 hours of launching Video on Instagram the community shared over a year's worth of footage."

Another post on the Instagram Blog listed a number of accounts that are using Video on Instagram, including:

• Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder — @tonyhawk.
• Almond Surfboards, handcrafted surfboard and accessories — @almond_surfboards.
• Wimbeldon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world — @wimbledon.
• Snoop Dogg, rapper and actor— @snoopdogg.
• Phoenix, alternative rock band from France — @wearephoenix.
• Madonna, singer-songwriter — @madonna.
• Karlie Kloss, fashion model — @karliekloss.
• Burberry, British luxury fashion brand — @burberry.
• Jamie Oliver, chef — @jamieoliver.
• Verve Coffee Roasters, Santa Cruz-based coffee roastery — @vervecoffee.
• Shay Mitchell, actress of Pretty Little Liars — @shaym.
• Jimmy Fallon, comedian and host of Late Night — @jimmyfallon.
• Charity Water, non-profit organization bringing clean drinking water to developing nations — @charitywater.

A third post on the Instagram Blog linked to a story on CNET: "Instagram users upload 5M clips in vid-sharing feature's first day."

Meanwhile, new data released today by video technology company Unruly found the average number of tweets containing a Vine link had risen from five every second during April to nine every second during the first three weeks of June.

Interest in Vine has grown exponentially since its launch earlier this year. It currently has more than 13 million users. With branded Vines four times more likely to be shared than video ads and mobile data traffic set to increase 13-fold between 2012 and 2017, advertisers have been quick to experiment with Twitter's short-form mobile video platform.

Brands and agencies looking to make the most of this surge in Vine activity now have the chance to amplify, optimize and analyse the success of their Vine campaigns across the social web using the industry's first end-to-end social video product set that was launched by Unruly today.

Advertisers will not only be able to create Vine content using Unruly's Vine Talent Agency and evaluate Vines for shareability and effectiveness using Unruly's ShareRank algorithm; they'll be able to distribute Vine content to a global audience of 978 million users and benchmark the social footprint of their Vines against their competitive set.

"Vine and other platforms, most recently Instagram, are leading a revolution in social video sharing," said Unruly COO and co-founder, Sarah Wood. "Mobile video consumption tripled in 2012; video is the fastest growing ad format worldwide and Vine is changing the social video landscape, six seconds at a time. Advertisers can get ahead of the competition, grow their social footprint and extend their mobile reach by including Vine as part of an always-on content marketing strategy.

Brand marketers who are serious about their content marketing strategy understand that there's more to social video success than a YouTube view count. The social video ecosystem is developing rapidly to meet changing consumer habits and brands can now embrace a multitude of platforms across a fragmented media landscape to reach and engage their audiences wherever they're discovering and sharing videos."

Unruly is the first provider in the social video space to launch an end-to-end Vine technology product set. Brands and agencies can now:

• Create Vines: Unruly is building a network of ‘Vioneers', experts in Vine content creation who can partner with brands to create Vines and re-purpose their longer-form videos;
• Evaluate Vines: Advertisers can use Unruly ShareRank™ to test the ‘shareability' of their Vines pre and post launch;
• Distribute Vines: Unruly has launched a Vine app and a Vine Social Video Player so that advertisers can now distribute their Vines across the social web to Unruly's audience of 978 million global unique users;
• Optimize Vines: Brands can optimize their Vine campaign performance by using Unruly's Dynamic Creative Optimization technology to automatically display the best-performing Vine by campaign KPI;
• Measure Vines: Brands can track the social success of their Vine creatives and compare it to other Vine and video creatives in seconds using Unruly Analytics.

For marketers, it will be fun to watch the media coverage of the video-sharing horse race. But, it's more important to listen quietly to the debate between the advocates of the 15-second video and the supporters of the 6-second looping video. Then, marketers should test these new approaches to video-sharing before adding one or both to their marketing mix.

This article was originally published on Search Engine Watch.