You probably know the feeling when you try out a pair of trousers and the young salesperson says with lots of confidence that it fits you perfectly! Both of us know that I need one size bigger, but we’ll keep playing the game. Eventually I’ll ask my wife to replace the ones I bought to one size bigger pair, it might not fit perfectly, but it would be much more comfortable…
Is there a perfect fit? Or we should simply use what is more comfortable?
Let’s take the subject in the title – digital signage is used in the past few years in social events as a local social network, allowing visitors in all sorts of events (weddings, parties, exhibitions, conventions, openings, concerts, you name it…) to easily log on and share text messages, images and even short videos on the big screens located at the event. The digital signage software provided by startups such as NoviSign supports the most common social networks to be used by the digital signage providers for these events. The most popular are Instagram and Twitter.
So which one will be the perfect fit?
As Twitter was ‘born’ from the text (142 chars, fits the good old SMS), it is still mainly used for it, although it allows Images and videos as well, the size and shape of the text is well known, the format and API for the tweet wall in the presented screen will be perfect for the screen – it will not surprise you, it will not be spilled over, it will disappear under some other item, as opposed to the video/images – these come in different shapes and sizes and there, for the allocated spot, might be narrow/wide/short/long – this can actually damage the presentation and create an unprofessional digital signage screen.
Instagram was ‘born’ from the images world and therefore, the ability to add an image (with lots of cool filters) is clearly more structural (simply add the specific hashtag to the screen – and we’re ON!) and it would perfectly fit the allocated space. The Text is actually the more problematic side here and it creates a twisted appearance and impacts the entire screen.
So the answer is as always – depends what are you looking for. If your live event is expected to get the audience text messages on the big screens (comment, funny remarks, opinions, questions from audience) I would recommend on Twitter, if the orientation would be more sharing of images (selfie party, bar or a wedding) the obvious answer would be using the live Instagram feed.
But why not combine both? One way is to dedicate some of the big screens for Insatgram wall (for images) and some to Twitter (for text). Another option is using NoviSign CMS to combine both widgets into one screen.
Hope this fits you…
Yahav.