Recently I wrote a post, here on BurrellesLuceFresh Ideas, outlining key tips for integrating online video into your PR campaign from a recent PRSA-NY panel. For this post, I thought I would re-cap some of what I thought were the most compelling best practices for creating, marketing, and measuring online video content – as discussed at the event.
It was followed by a roundtable Q&A moderated by Jason Winocour, social and digital media practice leader at Hunter Public Relations.
How to Create Online Video Content Nearly 89 percent of journalist report that they regularly include online video content in their stories. But how can marketing and communications professionals create compelling video content?
Jim Sulley, president of Newscast U.S., had these best practices to offer:
Understand who you are trying to reach. Who are your target demographics?
Get the attention of the people watching. You only have 10 seconds to hook their interest.
Shoot to script, don’t script to shoot. In other words, take the time to plan your videos and write a script.
Create biscuits, little surprises along the way, and don’t give away the ending upfront.
Be truthful. And remember, production values count.
Entertain or DIE.
Too much text is annoying for online video.
When creating video content, you will also want to get your online community, stakeholders, and agencies involved, as this with provide you with feedback and help you market your initiatives. (more…)
Facebook re-designs and the advent of Google+ are creating super-charged environments in which to disseminate and consume content online.
PR and communications professionals can ramp-up their storytelling to produce content that gains and keeps the attention of their audiences in a noisy online space.
Mashable Expanding Its Coverage (Media Coder/NYTimes)
“Mashable, the popular Web site for information about technology and social media, said Tuesday that it was expanding coverage to include new sections for entertainment, United States news and world news, and that it was hiring a veteran technology editor to oversee all editorial content.”
Where Newspapers Thrive (LA Times)
“Some 8,000 weekly papers still hit the front porches and mailboxes in small towns across America every week and, for some reason, they’ve been left out of the conversation.”
Court OKs Suit Over Toyota ‘Prank’ Campaign (MediaPost)
“A California appellate court has handed a defeat to Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi, its ad agency, in a lawsuit stemming from a viral “prank a friend” campaign that went awry.”
Photo Posts Major Mobile Activity (MediaPost)
“Tracking its panel of 294 smartphone and tablet owners, Prosper finds 69.4% are reading status updates on their networks, 53.4% are updating their own status. But 65.6% are viewing photos and 49% are posting photos.”
Lights, Camera, Advertisements (WSJ.com)
“More advertiser-created shows are running on the internet. They could provide a new template for TV that harkens back to the era when advertisers not only sponsored but helped to create, cast, and script ‘soap operas’ and variety shows.”
Condé Nast Launches New Social Tool (FishbowlNY)
“Condé Nast is getting more social with the launch of Social Sidekick, a web tool that will aggregate the most shared pieces from some of its many brands. The tool launches Wednesday, and will showcase popular articles from W, Style.com, Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue and Lucky.”
Here’s Why Fox News Claims Gawker’s Traffic Fell 75 Percent (Forbes.com)
“Fox News and Gawker are going at it again. The Rupert Murdoch-owned cable channel says Gawker is irrelevant, so much so that its irrelevancy needs to be discussed both on Fox’s No. 1-rated air and on its website. The Nick Denton-owned gossip site says Fox’s logic-challenged attack is preemptive payback — pretaliation? — for a juicy story on a major Fox personality it’s getting set to publish.”
G.E. to Produce Short Films About Innovation (NYTimes/MediaCoder)
“General Electric just can’t stay away from the movies. Barely eight months after ceding control of NBC Universal and its Universal Studios to Comcast, G.E. is diving into the documentary world as the financial backer of 30 three-minute films by directors including Morgan Spurlock (“POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”), Joe Berlinger (“Crude”), Barbara Kopple (“Shut Up and Sing”) and Alex Gibney (“Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place”).”
Local TV Newscasts Expanding (NYT)
Rebounding after nearly three years of decline, local news stations are slowly adding staff back into their newsroom mix. But will this expansion be enough to revive the television industry?
StumbleUpon Delivers Half of U.S. Social Media Traffic (ReadWriteWeb)
While Facebook may have reached this milestone back in April 2010, StumbleUpon is proving it is also a force to be reckoned with – continually providing more referrals than Twitter.
Initiative to Marketers: Wake Up, Optimize Brand Content Online (Media Post)
“40% of customers now say they will not buy a brand if they can’t find the right information about it online,” according to a new consumer survey by Initiative, the Interpublic Group media agency.
The Evolution of Search Will Refine the Spectrum of Quality in Media (Rossdawsonblog.com)
Despite the evolution of technology and search functionality, search engines are not getting any better as more and more erroneous content is being pulled to the top of results. This post highlights five ways search engines can decrease spam and improve the quality of content.
