Riff App: Riffraff or Quality?

Riff is another new app Facebook has added to its social media family. Riff allows users to post videos as well as collaborate on others creations. Picture a permanent version of the themed collaborative SnapChat stories. The most helpful analogy I came across was, “imagine if the ice bucket challenge videos were a collaboration.”
So, I took the app for a spin and found Riff fairly easy to use. For my 3 part video, I chose to unveil the new PMG office. If you haven’t heard yet, we recently added some much needed space to our office! I uploaded the video directly from the app and tagged the PMG Agency page. Here is a glimpse of the app interface!

All in all, it was a painless process. However, there are two features (or lack thereof) I do not like about this app:

One, you can’t edit a video. In a world where people can easily name 4 or 5 Instagram filters offhand, I was disappointed by this.

The second flaw in Riff is the ability to easily and quickly capture moments. There is a 3 second delay from the time you hit record. In fact, the first time I tried to create a video was at a baseball game. I tried to quickly capture the Rangers homerun that won the game. But by the time the 3 seconds passed, the play was over and my video was pointless. Plus, the camera defaults to a self-facing camera point of view. We have all been there when you open your camera to find your face staring back at you in from an unflattering angle. Not cool Riff.

Overall, if Facebook succeeds and manages to capture the young millennial audience they are seeking, how can marketers leverage this platform? In my opinion, Riff has the potential to become a useful channel for user generated content. A company can start by creating a small, simple video with a catchy hashtag. Then your fans do the hard work and add onto your clip for a fun and organic collaborative video. One nice feature of Riff is the creator of the video you can delete any negative or inappropriate content so you can monitor what is being posted to your brand name. Finally, take your catchy hashtag and spread it through all your social media channels to achieve maximum brand buzz.

So, what brand do you think will be the first to try it?

Featured Image from Flickr user downloadsource.fr, Licensed through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.