While corporations have started to use Vine for advertising, museums have been slow to adopt this medium. Given the number of museums with Vine accounts, many institutions seem to acknowledge the possibility in short videos. However, most museums are yet to exploit Vine for its full potential. Short-videos are an important way in which users communicate with each other.
Museums need to understand the possibilities for this media in order to engage with visitors in authentic ways. This paper will consider the potential of short video and stop-motion video (Vine and Instagram) for museums in order define best practices for museums and project possible future directions for the medium. Drawing from our own experiences using Vine and Instagram at museums, we will focus on three main themes transparency, information dissemination, and collaborative communication. Counteracting the the dearth of scholarship on the use of short-videos by museums, this paper will offer practictioners concrete ways to implement this cost-effective tool in their institutions.