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February 23, 2017

Let's face it. We are visual and we are lazy. We like to hear stories and we like people to read to us. That's why being able to watch a video is even better.

Using a video within a press release can help strengthen the story. Back in early April of 2014 we published an article on how images used to be king when accompanying a press release. That article may be found here.

Times have changed and now we have learned that including a video within your press release could potentially assist with brand perception and increased sales. In fact, according to an article published at Social Media Today by David Hall, consumers are 64% more likely to purchase a product after watching an online video. More on that article may be found here.

With increasingly quicker internet bandwidths and easier ways to create video, such as through smart phones, the number of videos being produced has increased dramatically. It is no surprise that year over year, YouTube continues its exponential growth in the number of videos uploaded and viewed.

At 24-7 Press Release Newswire, we have also seen an increase in videos used within a press release. Do they help? The answer is "Yes. Absolutely!" This holds particularly true if you are inserting a video about a new product or service within your press release.

Here is how it works with 24-7 Press Release Newswire. When you submit your press release through 24-7 Press Release Newswire, you have an option to include a link to a YouTube video or upload a video file with that press release. Although the press release remains on the 24-7 Press Release Newswire website, we send out notifications to journalists who are potentially interested in your story, linking back to your press release that resides on our site, where they can find the video.

Similar to including images within your press release, we also recommend including within the body of your press release a note at the bottom that says "Press release video: http://www.yourlink.com". That way, when your press release is transferred over the wire, although your original video file in your press release will not be transmitted, the link within the body is. This is the same recommendation and process with image posts as well. Particularly if the images are high resolution (large files) -- we recommend the inclusion of a link in the body of your press release for easy access by journalists.

As far as the length of your video, we recommend no longer than 2 minutes. According to the article in Social Media Today, 60% of consumers will spend at least 2 minutes watching the video if it is representative of a product or service that they have an interest in.

A more recent article at Insivia refers to a report from Forrester (the research and analysis group), advising that including video within an email can lead to a massive 200-300% increase in click-through rate. We would anticipate the same kind of increase by including a video in a press release as well. Forrester also estimates that, in terms of audience reach, a one minute video is equivalent to 1.8 million words.

The addition of a video in the 24-7 Press Release Newswire site is easy and straight forward, with the flexibility of either linking to a YouTube video or upload direct.

Ensuring that you maximize your media with both video and images (particularly if they are product related) is an excellent way to increase visibility and sharing of your press release. When submitting your press release at 24-7 Press Release Newswire you have the flexibility of either uploading your own video or linking to an existing YouTube video. Take advantage of it.