Mashable has a regularly occurring series on its website called “The Social PR Guide Series.” One of the most recent contributions to this series focuses on YouTube, and how PR professionals can successfully implement and manage the solution within their companies. While many companies are becoming quite savvy at using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, YouTube remains somewhat of a mystery. Therefore, I thought I’d share a few points from we gleaned from their article titled, “The PR Pro’s Guide to YouTube.”
According to Mashable, video sharing sites, such as YouTube, Vimeo or VEVO, are “an excellent way to break the ice because nothing online is as personal and human as video.” They also note that in February, there were more than 139 million unique online video viewers in the U.S. that spend an average of four and a half hours watching the videos. That’s a huge potential audience for PR pros and marketers to tap into.
Here are a few ways that Mashable recommends using YouTube:
- Launching a Campaign – Videos offer a great way to raise awareness of news and other announcements. They are easy to digest and are easy to share. By enabling this ease of use, PR pros are making it more likely that the news will spread by word of mouth.
- Crisis Communication – According to Mashable, “video is one effective way to respond to questions and help calm fears.” Videos are also relatively quick to produce, which allows companies the flexibility to respond in a timely manner.
- Discover New Audiences – This is the core of what we do as PR and marketing professionals. We help our clients discover and engage with target audiences that are brand appropriate. By allowing people to comment on your videos, you’re enabling a community of like-minded individuals to connect and discuss the issues you bring up. As an example of this, read our earlier post about Major League Baseball’s unwillingness to allow videos to be posted to YouTube, and the potential audience connection they are missing out on.
- “Extend Your Brand” – Mashable suggests that companies “integrate the look of [its] profile page with [its] website homepage or other online communications channels. Creating consistency and connections to other channels makes it easier for visitors to get more information from your online resources.”
- Enhance Media Relationships – Just as PR pros are discovering that videos are a great way to connect with consumers, journalists are also discovering that videos are a good way to connect with readers. By sharing high-quality videos on a company’s YouTube site, companies can make it easy for journalists to get the content they want and need, quickly and easily.
The article also outlines a few considerations for measuring the reach of your online videos. YouTube’s “video statistics” feature allows companies to see how many viewers each video received, the total number of commenters and their geographic location, and whether or not people viewed the videos from a mobile device. As PR pros, measurement is important and it’s helpful that YouTube makes it so easy to report back.
Finally, Mashable notes that not all videos will receive the same amount of attention. Hey, we can’t all launch a successful “Old Spice Guy” campaign every day. If you are considering implementing a YouTube channel or other video aspect to your communication plan, consider the following questions:
- “How does the use of video fit within our larger communications strategy?”
- “What is the story we would like to tell? Is video the best way to share that story?”
- “What does success look like?”
- “How will we respond if our video receives little or negative attention?”
Have you successfully utilized YouTube or videos in your communication plan? Have you seen any good video campaigns that you can share? We’d love to hear your stories and tips for others reading this post, so feel free to share in the comments below.