Memo to communications professionals: If video isn’t in your PR and marketing toolkits, it should be.
Why do you need video? Because:
- YouTube streams more than 1.2 billion videos every day, according to TechCrunch
- 90% of 2009-2010 broadcast TV was on Internet
- Microsites with video are 53 times more likely to get on the front page of Google Search, according to Forrester Research
- More than 177 million U.S. Internet users watched video online in June 2010, according to ComScore, that’s more than 100 videos per viewer
- Approximately 85 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience regularly views online video
- Media websites increasingly depend on outside video. In fact, one well-respected newspaper has asked for a video series to be created for their website.
- 90 percent of radio websites now use video.
- 87 percent of newspaper websites now use video.
- 76 percent of magazine websites now use video.
Ok, so now that you’re on the video bandwagon, here are five helpful tips (or so I hope), from storyboarding and preproduction to merchandizing:
- Speak the words, don’t write a script. Account for pauses, music transitions, and most importantly, how naturally the words flow together. Skip long words. Use phrases (that’s how most people talk).
- Stock imagery can be a great way to give more pizzazz to flatter footage, but be cognizant of where/how it was used previously
- Think about customizing videos, with different calls to action that make the viewer interact with the message
- Optimize your video – the description should be keyword rich, place links in the description and the video itself.
- One video does not all audiences serve, so think about how to maximize any video you have (and/or buy). Can you create products messages for tradeshows? Use mini-segments to pitch the media? Tell a better corporate story to potential employees?
See you on the big screen.