The PR 2.0 Video Toolkit

It was Phil Gomes, VP of Edelman, who said “In the new PR 2.0 toolkit, a camcorder is in your pocket.”  Phil was definitely onto something. Today, communications professionals rely on video to achieve more impact for their PR programs through visual storytelling. Video is an essential PR/communications tool, and, as a result, audience statistics prove that it’s exploding on the web.

My company works with our clients frequently to capture what we consider a variety of “moments” that are meant to share either the essence of their companies or to visually show their expertise and thought leader opinions.  Sometimes, we use video to capture a situation that is not as powerful through the use of words alone; where video helps to better define the company’s stance on an important issue or even to more precisely describe or show the function of an important product or service.

I’m always looking for interesting use of video.  I also recently came in contact with a company called SizzleIt (www.SizzleIt.com) that sent me their news release to review.  SizzleIt offers promo video reels that are 3-to-5 minute and made with fresh visuals, audio, and graphics that have several uses.  My company has successfully used this type of short video presentation to:

• Capture the best of a campaign (to show highlights) as a part of a report or summary to a client,
• Excite people at the beginning of new business meeting in an effort to get the prospective client interested in what we’re about to present.
• Motivate employees attending company meetings at the very onset of the event.

I’m lucky because PFS has an in-house video suite where we can do these types of video compilations for our own sales purposes and for the benefit of our clients.  However, not everyone has this type of premiere service in-house and can turn to a company such as SizzleIt that strictly focuses on video sizzle and promo videos to get your message across in a short yet visually powerful way.

I think there are so many exciting uses for video and I do believe that it is the future.  Whether you are using video for social media strategies or to capture attention as part of a presentation, the benefits are the same – powerful footage that tells a story better than the spoken or written word on a page.  Would you agree that with video and visual storytelling that seeing is believing?