5 Tips for Using Video in PR & Marketing

By Matter

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:

  1. 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).
  2. Stock imagery can be a  great way to give more pizzazz to flatter footage, but be cognizant of where/how it was used previously
  3. Think about customizing videos, with different calls to action that make the viewer interact with the message
  4. Optimize your video – the description should be keyword rich, place links in the description and the video itself.
  5. 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.