How NatWest, Honda, Nick Cave and QPR use Vine to respond to fans

Earlier this week NatWest began using Vine clips as a way of responding to customer service queries on Twitter.

It's not the first time that a brand has tried to be creative with Vine, and we've previously reported on fashion retailers using the platform as well as brands running Vine competitions.

To give credit to NatWest, I'm not aware of any other businesses using Vine for customer service, though there are several examples of brands using the platform to respond to their followers.

Here are further details of NatWest's campaign, as well as details of three other examples...

NatWest

As mentioned in the intro, NatWest has been using Vine as a novel way of responding to around 20 of its most common customer service queries.

Often it requires two or three tweets to fully answer customer questions, but the Vines allow NatWest to limit answers to a single tweet while also responding in a way that users might not expect.

The Vines will help to answers queries about paperless statements, phishing emails and cheques, among other things.

For example, this is the response you could possibly receive if you're having problems with online banking: 

NatWest says that Vine fits with the brand's tone of voice, and it's certainly a break from the stuffy image one normally associates with banks.

Honda

Last month Honda began responding to Twitter users with Vine clips, but only if they used the hashtag #wantnewcar.

The campaign was a promotion for Honda's summer sales event, so users were supposed to tweet the car brand to say why they needed a new vehicle.

 

People's reasons included things like the fact that they had to cycle to work, their car was being a jerk, or that their previous car was a dinosaur.

In keeping with the quirky questions Honda kept its answers lighthearted:

It even roped in teen sensation Rebecca Black (nope, me neither) to answer some of the queries.

Honda put a fair amount of effort into its responses, but the level of investment would still have been very low so it was a good PR exercise for its summer sale.

QPR

Championship football team QPR does a great deal of social marketing, and its players are also keen Twitter users.

So it's no great surprise that the club has been quick to start experimenting with Vine, with its activities including a recent Q&A with new signing Danny Simpson.

Fans could tweet questions at QPR using the hashtag #AskDanny and Simpson then responded to around 20 questions: 

Personally, I think it's a great idea as it allows fans personal access to players. However, QPR could have executed it slightly better than it did. The Vines that it posted were tweeted on their own, without the hashtag, any @mentions or reference to the original question.

Nick Cave

To promote the live stream a concert from LA's Fonda Theatre in February this year, Nick Cave conducted a Q&A where he responded to questions by Twitter and Vine.

But while Cave did answer a decent number of questions from fans, he only actually posted one Vine which unfortunately (or perhaps deliberately) misspelled the name of the original questioner.

In one of his subsequent answers Cave describes his dislike for being photographed, so it could just be that he didn't like being on camera so refused to do any more Vines.