Video Coming to Instagram to the Delight of Mobile Marketers

It’s the hottest rumor in social media today: Instagram may unveil new video sharing features analogous to Twitter’s Vine this week.

Current expectations call for Instagram’s video sharing feature to be launched as soon as Thursday, June 20th.

June 20th, of course, coincides with Facebook’s confirmed media event intended to launch… something.

Sources close to the social networking giant say the event will be all about Instagram, the revolutionary photo-sharing platform acquired by Facebook last year for $1 billion.

Instagram, industry analysts contend, has been forced into a corner on video in light of Vine’s emergent popularity.

“The Vine app — which lets users take six seconds of video footage on an iOS or Android handset and then share those clips to Vine’s own network, Twitter or Facebook — has shot up in popularity since going live in January,” explains Ingrid Luden of Tech Crunch. “After Twitter debuted an Android version of Vine in the beginning of June, usage reached a tipping point: shares of Vines surpassed those of Instagram photos on Twitter — usage that has only diverged even more since then.”

With budding social media marketers looking for newer and more effective ways to reach consumers with video via the mobile channel, Instagram’s announcement could have a big impact on mobile marketing.

“Instragram could become an incredibly powerful resource for marketers if used correctly,” says Tarran Meyers of Dolber Marketing. “The addition of video to Instagram would give advertisers an opportunity to better engage with consumers in a creative and comfortable manner that feels informal despite the advertorial overtones of the content presented.”