It’s been an exciting month at 8020 Communications, as we officially launched our in-house video production team; providing high-quality and affordable filming and editing services to meet all your travel PR, aviation PR and transport PR needs.
Today, we’re all avid social media users, but historically, PR plans have often focused on written content – print articles, blog posts, or the right hashtags to choose for your destination Instagram post. Video, however, is not just the domain of powerful, consumer brands. It is a colourful way to engage new audiences and to share your product, service or business with millions online. Here’s five reasons why you should consider video as part of your PR strategy:
Video is kind of a big deal
In a single day one billion hours of video are watched on YouTube, 500 million people use Instagram and four billion videos are viewed on Facebook. Cisco predict that by 2022, video will account for a whopping 82% of all internet traffic.
When the team behind the Wimbeldon tennis championship upped their Facebook and Instagram spend in 2018, they had over 33 million video views and 380k new followers on Instagram, with more than 700 new leads from digital ads. If you’re not using video yet as part of your PR strategy, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity to raise your profile and reach new audiences.
Video adds colour and authority to your PR campaign
Hello…it’s me
Do you have a strong leader who is full of personality and charisma? Away from the boardroom they can also be a powerful digital advocate for your brand. Since LinkedIn video was launched in 2017, it’s become an increasingly popular B2B tool, allowing CEOs and companies to position themselves as thought leaders in their field.
Video posts on LinkedIn have an average of three times the engagement rates of text-only posts. If you look at how Wired editor Nicholas Thompson uses LinkedIn video to offer his thinking on tech trends, you’ll see how much his videos also enable him to conduct a straw poll of the key minds in the industry.
It’s snappy
While longer videos are gaining increased traction on YouTube, your business still needs to work out the best strategy to keep audiences watching your video content for more than a few seconds. Hit your audiences with your strongest message and get your call to action included early on in your video clip. Then you can give the context.
Video PR forces you to find clarity in your message and deliver the key information in a short space of time; concision that will ultimately help across your whole wider PR campaign or strategy.
Show and tell
If you’re planning a holiday and looking at accommodation to book, chances are you’ve checked a traveller review website. For potential customers, it’s exactly the same. They want to know that the service or product your business offers is legitimate and will help them to thrive. There’s nothing better than having a human face to a customer testimonial, with a video case study allowing audiences to instantly engage with a story of a customer, just like them.
If you’ve done a great job for a client and they are happy to be filmed giving evidence of this growth, it can be incredibly powerful. Check out Sandwich Video talking about messaging service Slack for a good example and adjust your tone in line with your brand.
Boost your SEO
Internet users spend 2.6 times longer on pages with videos, than those without. Video can boost the minutes spent on your company website and up your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) rankings with Google so it’s easier for potential customers to find you. Video can also reduce your website’s bounce rate by keeping visitors engaged in your message, more likely to click around, and less inclined to quickly go elsewhere.
Think about the key pages on your company website to host video, and how embedded links within your video could direct visitors to content elsewhere. Having fallen down the YouTube rabbit hole many a time, we all know that hints of other content ‘you may be interested in’ really works.
Analytics tools will also quickly show you the power of video content, and how many users come to your website from the social media videos you post, allowing you to demonstrate real ROI. To find out how we can help you tap into the power of video PR please get in touch: 8020comms.com/contact/
