When it comes to news releases, words alone just don’t do it any more. With thousands of press releases being distributed every day, communication staff are constantly looking for opportunities to cut through the information overload and reach a broader audience.
Today, organisations can use the online channel to create visual storytelling, a critical pillar in any effective communication strategy. According to a study by PR Newswire, multimedia embeds can increase traffic by up to 77%. Researches also looked at how 200 multimedia news releases (including photos, audio, video or infographics) fared against 10,000 text-only pieces. They found that readers were 3.5 times more likely to share the multimedia, thereby spreading a release’s main message even further.
Multimedia often offers the extra ¨sizzle¨ that journalists are looking for and can even become stories in their own right. Taking risks and experimenting with new formats should be part of what communicators do today in the multimedia space, for example, offering readers a pathway that unfolds before them as they travel through the story.
Here are some tips suggested by PR Newser to make your multimedia press releases thrive:
- Make multimedia easy to reshare. For example, embed images in releases to be displayed on popular websites, such as Yahoo!, with links to full-size files for easy reposting.
- Get creative with video. Bring your news to life by embedding video directly within the releases. Videos should be short, compelling and share-worthy. At the same time, remember that quality video can be created without investing thousands and thousands of dollars in production. Now, there is the opportunity to get creative with short videos that reinforce our messages and increase the likelihood of social sharing.
- Bring quotes to life. Add some personality with a short video or audio file. While reporters typically like to conduct their own interviews, they’ll also grab a quote from a release if they’re under a time crunch. Make your sound bite of choice even more appealing to reporters/bloggers by giving them a video file to embed with their article.
- Embed content with crossover appeal. When creating multimedia content, think about content that will serve multiple purposes in different forums. If your most loyal online advocates are entrenched in YouTube, then it certainly makes sense to include video in news releases that can be repurposed on your YouTube channel as well. But if your audience spends more time on Pinterest, then you want to create “pinnable” content (images or video). Likewise, if you’ve built up a strong Tumblr following, include multimedia in the release that can be effectively tumbled.
Marian Hens, MediaTrain, Madrid