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Viddy this my brothers…

Posted by putsimply on 15th March 2010


Ok, time for a little PR tip. We sometimes give these away for free.

There’s something I’ve been saying to clients over and over for a while now, and that I feel quite passionate about, and I want an opportunity to rant about it on the blog. It concerns the use of video as a PR tool.

Quite a few of the large companies that we work for, and even some of the smaller ones, are in the habit of making quite flash promo videos, often costing a reasonable amount of money.

That’s fine if that’s what you need. If you want to present a flashy, professional image to the world you should spend money on it your video.

However, that often tends to be it. Too many companies that could make excellent use of casual, low-grade, no-cost video on a more frequent basis don’t go near video again until it’s time for the next shoot.

I’m convinced that video is the most underused PR tool in the world. As print slowly goes the way of the dodo lots of journalists I speak to are desperate for some nice-looking video content to fill their sites.

As I advise my clients, companies have a huge opportunity to do some rough, shot-on-a-handheld, unlit, in-the-lab, spur-of-the-moment videos. How does this device work? What does this software do? Could you walk us through something? Have you had any interesting ideas about your industry? Journalists love this kind of thing.

And it’s never been so easy. My £180 camera at home can shoot HD video, (not that you’d ever need HD for the web). Every Mac comes with easy-to-use video editing software, and PCs can download free editing suites in a heartbeat.

I can’t help but think that, if I owned my own company, I’d try to hammer out a video diary once a week. A one-minute video diary can be prepped and finished within ten minutes, easily. Half an hour if you need to do any editing.

So my top tip is let journalists see some raw edges. Promotional video make you look professional, but video diaries can give you real personality, and will constantly drive you into the media’s mind.

Right… If you take me up on this, you can send the cheque to ‘Alex’ at EML Towers….

putsimply