Online video: your client has decided they want to create one for their next PR campaign. Video offers some fantastic opportunities but competition for viewer, particularly editorially is fierce. Despite video being one of the most shared media online, many people in the PR and marketing world are often skeptical about investing time and money to create video content for their campaign.
Although it’s difficult to measure the exact return of any individual video, its potential reach is vast. Video will account Globally for 82% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021 – that’s according to networking giant CISCO.
So if a picture paints a thousand words, then a short one minute video must be worth at least a billion. Video is emotive and engaging and ultimately easy to consume – allowing the viewer to gain maximum impact with little effort required. YouTube alone has over 1 billion active users and regularly has visitors from over a third of internet users as a whole, including 5 billion cumulative views every day (source: YouTube’s press/data page).
So what’s the benefit of creating your own PR video? Well, firstly you are guaranteeing it WILL be filmed. Often broadcasters and online outlets sign up to come along to events or agree to an interview with a spokesperson, and the nature of news means another story will break which pushes your story off the agenda.
You may find that you’ve gone from having three or four potential pieces of coverage to no coverage at all.
Also, if you commission your own package as part of your campaign, it puts YOU in control. You have editorial say in what interview clips, shots and brand messages are put across and how the final product should look and feel. Ultimately it means you and/or your client won’t be disappointed with the end result.
Importantly, by deciding to invest in an online package you’ll be creating a permanent record of your campaign which will give it a lasting legacy. If you’ve spent a lot of money on a celebrity spokesperson and an amazing location – why would you not want to immortalise it in film? Online videos remain on the internet in perpetuity and will continue to be sought out by those craving information and entertainment.
If you upload a video to Twitter, for example, it will remain on the platform unless the original poster deletes it themselves meaning it is instantly accessible to anyone who knows or follows your Twitter account. And that’s before you start to think about re-tweets and favourites, which spread your content EVEN further!
Another benefit of online is that they have no time constraint. As fantastic as radio interviews and TV appearances are, they can sometimes be a ‘one-and-done’ thing, meaning if you get unlucky with a huge breaking story or other uncontrollable events that can drown PR stories, your campaign can get lost. However, online is constantly available and ready to view whenever the viewer is ready. It will remain on any and every platform the video is placed on, watching the view numbers climb. People of course all have different time schedules, yet because of how online video algorithms work, an online video that is gaining good traction will reach all manner of people as the platform will push the content to all the users it thinks the video will appeal to.
Online packages provide the perfect tie-in to traditional broadcast campaigns. If your story does well across radio and TV, the chances are it will have ‘talkability’ as people discuss your research/survey. Then, they’ll go online and find the accompanying video to share with their other family and friends. Let’s say for example you get 10,000 views on a Twitter video which has been retweeted 1000 times by users who average 100 followers. With a bit of quick maths… that interaction with the online video has now increased your coverage by 100,000 people. Again, that’s before we get into the never ending procession of retweets on retweets and social media influencers picking up stories and reaching hundreds of thousands of people. The numbers can be astronomical.
If you’re considering including online video as part of your PR campaign, give us a call on 02012407373 or send an email to hello@shoutcommunications.co.uk
