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April 01, 2014

If you have a well-written press release, your next step towards making your release more visible to potential customers and news partners is to include various multimedia alongside your release. Most people are visual and a relevant and eye-catching photo, illustration or video may just draw them in where a release wouldn't.

At 24-7 Press Release Newswire, we allow for images to be uploaded with any of our paid distribution packages, and with our $89 and above packages we allow for videos to be uploaded also. Take full advantage of these options by uploading these attachments, but also include links to your images and videos on your company website or YouTube, for those news partners who do not support attachments. Research from PR Newswire has shown that multimedia releases have 180% more visibility than text and are shared more than ten times per hour than releases that only contain text. Releases that contain multiple images get more than three times the visibility of text releases.

There are three main ways to include multimedia in your press releases:

• Images. Images are the simplest way to boost the visibility of your release. If you don't have the time or money to invest in a custom video for your company, images are easy ways to add another dimension to your press release. You can either use custom images you've taken yourself or you can purchase images to use from stock image sites. A logo can be included in this too, but people get fairly bored of seeing logos all the time, so try to include an image that also illustrates what your company does or offers as well - whether it's a real image of your staff or products, or simply a stock image of people doing an activity your company promotes.
  
  
• Videos. Uploading a video or linking to where your video is posted on YouTube adds an audio and visual component to your release that can't be achieved through text and images alone. It also gives you a more direct way to communicate with your potential customers and to have your company's voice heard - it's a good idea to have your company's spokesperson (usually the head of the company, such as a CEO or manager) or mascot to be included in the video in some way. Alternatively, videos that are digital graphics showing how your product or service works can also be effective. Videos are best kept brief - under three minutes, ideally.
  
  
• File attachments. Uploading a PDF, Excel or Word document to go alongside your release - or even a PowerPoint presentation - gives readers something tangible to walk away with, so they feel that they have been provided with extra value. Suggestions for valuable attachments to upload include free educational presentations or white papers illustrating the point your press release is making.
  
  

These varying forms of multimedia make your release stand out in the crowd, as it were, and will draw a greater variety of readers in. Every individual focuses differently; some people are very visual and will be more drawn in by images or video than by specific words. So use all the tools at your disposal!