Making your message stand out is harder than ever. Brands are focusing their marketing and PR efforts on gaining earned media coverage. The result is that journalists are flooded with releases and pitches, meaning your brand must stand out from the rest.
That is why this article by Mickie Kennedy on using YouTube for public relations intrigued me. Mickie cited three ways video can be incorporated into a brand’s PR.
1. Respond to a crisis. While you hopefully never have to respond to a crisis, odds are your business could face one at some point. What qualifies as a crisis? I’ll define it as any situation that brings your company negative press. As you can imagine, the severity of a crisis could vary widely.
Say someone accuses one of your employees of a heinous crime. You could create a video message to address the issue rather than hide and hope it goes away. The personal response could build goodwill with your customers.
2. Contact and connect with media. Reporters and bloggers are inundated with pitches via email and telephone daily. It can be difficult to get them to hear your story. But, people love to watch and share videos.
If you create a video that involves your pitch and you share it with reporters through sites like Twitter, you may increase your chances of setting your pitch apart from the pack. This means you’ll increase your odds of coverage.
3. Get your campaign rolling. Are you about to start a new product campaign? What better way to do so than to post a video on YouTube showing exactly why people should pay attention? Make sure the video is of good quality, and that you provide reasons why people should pay attention. In other words, keep it focused on benefits.
It is well known that imagery can sometimes say more than words alone. This is especially true for highly visual brands. Using a video service such as YouTube or Vimeo is an easy, fun and creative way to get your brand’s message to stand out above the rest in this competitive media environment.