Editor’s note: Vine was killed off by Twitter in 2016. You may want to use Instagram Stories or Snapchat for short video clips instead. We updated The Game Through Glass for Instagram Stories.

Video is hot. Short video bursts are even hotter.

The new attention span for online video is anywhere from :06-:15 seconds thanks to Vine and Instagram. We’ll cover Instagram in the next article, but for now we’ll focus on Vine.

To use Vine, you will need a smartphone or a tablet with a camera and a twitter account. It is app-based so it resides mostly on your phone or tablet. You shoot, edit and post videos with your phone.

First, the technical stuff:
Step one: Sign up for a twitter account if you don’t already have one. It will make thing a lot easier. You should be using twitter anyway.

Step two: Go to the app store on your phone, (iPhone or Android) search for the Vine app and download it.

Step Three: Log into the Vine app with your twitter account.

When you first open the Vine app, it will ask you to log in using Twitter. Select your twitter account and you’ll open up to the main screen. The key icon you are looking for in the camera in the upper right corner. Press on this.

The app will then open to the shooting screen. You can toggle the front and back-facing cameras with the icon in the lower left, but until you get the hang of it, it’s best to just choose one or the other.

To shoot a video, just hold down on the screen. When you lift your finger, the camera will stop, then start again when you touch the screen. It is a bit tricky at first, but you’ll find as you get better at it, you can do all sorts of really cool stop-motion effects.

You can save clips for later, re-order them, etc. as you get better and want to push the app to its limits. the only thing that you can’t control right now is the sound, but Vine might fix that is a later release.

Once you are satisfied with your video, press on the forward arrow, fill out the caption, toggle to Twitter and post. (You can also post to Facebook, but since Facebook is not entirely secure on phones, we just re-post manually from our Twitter feed. The choice is yours.)

What to shoot with video
By far, the hardest part about using video for your soccer tournament is deciding what to shoot or what story to tell. You may think that :06 seconds is not a lot of time, but if you don’t plan your story, it can be an eternity to fill up. As an experiment, shoot a Vine just of you, staring silently into the front camera.

Kinda a long video, isn’t it?

Some ideas:

• A welcome message to the teams. Why your tournament? Say it in :06seconds. Once posted, you can embed the video into your about page or front page news.
• Sponsors. Take your phone into your sponsors and invite them to invite the teams to their place during the tournament. You can post that video into the DEALS page.
• Show some behind-the-scenes. Teams love to see how things come together.
• Promote your people. Show your scheduler working on the game schedule, the referee assignor prepping equipment, the nets being raised on the fields.

Once you start getting the ideas flowing, there will be no end to the number of stories you can tell, all at :06 seconds at a time.

Next up: Instagram