From funny videos to short music clips, you could find it all on Vine. Unfortunately, it was recently announced that Vine which is owned by Twitter will be closing down. This is no doubt sad news for the millions of Vine users out there, especially for the content creators. The loss of Vine is sad but the social media scene moves quite quickly and the content creators and consumers who used Vine will move on quickly as well. Speaking of moving on, there is an app which shares some similarities with Vine called Musical.ly that is really stirring up some interest.
What is Musical.ly?
Musical.ly is a social media platform which lets its users share and discover creative 15-second videos. The app is geared towards music and you will see a lot of fun lip-syncing and dancing videos on it. In short Musical.ly allows for the creation of instant music videos. The creators of Musical.ly proudly proclaim this on their website. Musical.ly isn’t only for your teenaged sister however. Even singers such as Jason Derulo and Ariana Grande have made use of the platform to promote their music. Although Musical.ly may not be as well known as Vine currently, it is gaining steam and could be the next big thing. According to CNN, the app has around 20 million monthly active users. This number is noticeably less than the other popular platforms out there such as Instagram but the app undoubtedly has lots of potential. In fact CNN points out that users spend about 3 and a half minutes on average using the app. In comparison, people usually spend around 2 minutes on Instagram on average and about 1 and a half on Snapchat according to the same CNN article.
How To Use Musical.ly
A good place to start is how to actually create videos with Musical.ly. First, you need to click the Add button pictured below and then you can begin the creation process. There are 3 main variations to how you create videos. You can start making your video in the following ways: You can add a number of color effects to your videos after shooting them. The Party option is another cool feature which is worth checking out. Party mode allows you to create collaboration videos. Click on the Party button seen below in order to start your party. After creating your video you have the choice of uploading it and making it public or to save it privately. You can also do duets with other members. With a duet each user records their own part to a mutual soundtrack and the 2 are combined to create an awesome collaboration video. After you have created your awesome videos you can share them via other social media networks as well. Finally, one of the most exciting aspects of Musical.ly is the challenges. Challenges allow you to strut your stuff and show off your skills based on pre-determined criteria. For example the latest challenge is #Dangerous25. The cast of Michael Jackson: One which is a Michael Jackson based Cirque du Soleil production will pick their favorite video and basically give them a shoutout on social media. This may not seem like much but its a sure way to boost one’s social media profile, not to mention the fun factor involved. #Dangerous25 is an official Musical.ly challenge but you will also see challenges which are featured elsewhere such as the famous water bottle challenge. These type of videos are usually short making Musical.ly the perfect platform for showing them off.
Final Thoughts
The Vine app will soon be gone but Twitter assures us that they will keep our favorite Vine videos available on their website which is a nice consolation. On the bright side now we have Musical.ly. Its creators are always making changes in order to make the app more appealing to users. Let’s see how big it will get.
