Social Media Video

As I’ve mentioned previously, video is a great tool to promote your company and products on the Internet via social media outlets. One video strategy is a Web Media Tour (WMT). While television and radio media opportunities for media placement still exist, social media PR offers new venues. Whether you want to reach general demographics (women or men), or more specific ones—i.e., moms or health fitness activists, Web and blogger sites exist and they’re hungry for solid information on video.

A WMT can provide companies and spokespeople with one-on-one interview opportunities with bloggers and Web producers. Media relations experts can help book interviews and follow-up with Web sites geared toward a target audience. Edited video segments are sent to Web sites that conducted interviews. Each Web tour usually targets about 10 interviews. Monitoring services provide reports with screen grabs showing where the interview aired and tracking viewers watching the video, thus providing Web site traffic numbers when available.

It’s important to create message points and ensure the spokesperson has sufficient media training before launching a Web tour. But there are some major benefits, including longer interview segments than television and radio, and longevity, as many interviews remain on Web sites for several days, weeks or months. A WMT should not be used in place of traditional media tours but as another media avenue to reach a wide range of audiences. If the goal is to present more of a “third party” endorsement, non-health care spokespeople—registered dietitians of wellness experts—should be tapped for media outreach efforts.

As interviews are conducted in a studio, video development usually includes studio production and studio personnel such as lighting, audio engineer, video engineer, director/stage manager and on-site producer.

The great thing about video is that it can be re-purposed and used in other social media formats and traditional media.