Press Release Video Best Practices
Did you know that press releases that contain video hold the attention of your viewer longer? They’re shared more often, too. In the age of multimedia press releases, it doesn’t make sense to not try adding video to your release. However, if you do choose to leverage video, make sure that you keep these best practices in mind.
Keep It Short
Generally speaking, a video should be less than three minutes in length. This means that your video needs to be focused. Identify a component of your press release that you can expand upon, and use the video to tell a short story. Some examples might be to interview a customer, to demonstrate how to use a new product, or to share a success story. Longer videos tend to not perform as well as those that are around three minutes or less. The good news is that you can pack a lot of information and storytelling into three minutes.
Make Sure It’s Relevant
Make sure that the video you link to in your press release or embed in your release is relevant to the news that you’re announcing. If you’re promoting a new hire or partnership then a video about your products or services might not make sense. However, a quick interview with your new partner or a discussion about the benefits of your partnership makes sense and adds value to your release.
Check Video and Sound Quality
Make sure that the video is a quality one. Media representatives, customers, and prospects will be viewing the video. You want it to present you and your company in the best way possible. While you don’t have to have it professionally produced, you do want to make sure that the subjects are easy to see and hear.
Optimize It for Search
Video presents an opportunity for you to get more from your press release. You can leverage the power of video and optimize it for search. Use YouTube to host it and you can tag it with relevant keywords. You can add a description and a website link to your video and get more traffic and attention from it. In fact, you can share it on social media sites and post it on your blog or website too.
Brand It
Make sure that your video represents your brand both in terms of message, voice, and style. You want to be consistent with all of your marketing content and that includes any content that is connected to your press release.
Make It Sharable
Make sure that others can both embed your video on their website (with a link back to your site, of course) and easily share it on social media sites. Social share buttons and an embed code make this quick and easy. YouTube is again the easiest tool to use to host your video, create an embed code, and make it readily sharable.
As you create your press release strategy, identify opportunities to create and leverage video. Test and track your results. Also make sure that whatever press release distribution service you use supports multimedia press releases and video.
