Amplify Your Financial PR Campaigns with Multimedia Content

Research shows that adding images and video content can increase engagement and social media sharing. According to Forbes, 75% of articles published each week include multimedia content. However, most journalists note that a majority of the pitches they receive do not include any multimedia resources.  

I spoke with JCPR’s VP Dana Taormina who told me how she uses multimedia content as part of her communications strategies for clients. 

Q: How important is it to use multimedia content in PR?

Dana: It’s definitely important, and we are seeing a larger trend for this to be a standard best practice. Multimedia elements help on a variety of fronts, from SEO in press releases to assisting with storytelling.  We encourage our clients to consider adding multimedia to all content they create from marketing collateral, to white papers, releases and their blogs. This could be adding a photo to their logo with the press release distribution on the wire, to a video/animation, infographic or charts and graphs. An infographic for example, is a great way to articulate a campaign’s theme, provide tips, share learning points or turn statistics into interesting bites of data.
Infographics are also storytelling tactics that help to guide the audience through a simple, yet interesting message.

Q: Does multimedia content influence the chances of a press release being published?

Dana: Adding multimedia to a press release provides another opportunity to embed SEO keywords and drive a call to action for the reader to learn more. These SEO benefits help the announcement to get picked up on additional sites creating more web crawler hits.

Q: How else does multimedia content support your PR outreach?

Dana:  Multimedia has been a great support for our clients’ educational efforts. One example is when we created a multi-part video series. Each of these videos focuses on a topic to educate advisors and investors around alternative investments. The client added this to their educational library on their website and we were able to promote this initiative with the media. Some videos highlighted the client’s unique differentiators; however, we’ve found it best to keep the content educational and not company or product specific. Another opportunity we have seen is with event promotion. When it comes to promoting an annual conference, consider adding the highlights/recap video or still images from the previous year’s event to the press releases announcing the event for that year. 

Q: Would you recommend using an image or multimedia database or having a database on their website and press section?

Dana: We don’t advise the use of a database to download “stock” multimedia content to add to a press release’s distribution. Stock photos can be helpful for presentations and some marketing collateral, but for press releases, we’d suggest a specific screen shot, photo or video to paint a visual story consistent with the company’s brand identity. Multimedia components should be able to provide a human connection, hone in on your personality or define learning points or differentiators.

Q: What do editors in your region prefer when it comes to format?

Dana: We definitely get more requests for images as reporters are working on their stories. As the media landscape has evolved, a big emphasis has been placed on digital news and social media. Photos, screen shots and infographics seem to be top favorites, but video is also being embedded into a lot of these digital stories every day. Many media outlets have even dedicated pages of their site to video content. The majority of this is media specific interviews, but I see video evolving when it comes to PR and the media.

Q: How do you recommend distributing the multimedia content – as a download, attachment, image database?

Dana: It is really a customized approach. Most multimedia is best utilized when it’s at a high resolution format. To achieve this, a shared downloadable file or download link is often most helpful. Solutions like ShareFile or Dropbox are common services. Distribution of a photo with a news wire versus what a magazine may need for print can vary dramatically.
Therefore, we suggest creating your multimedia files in multiple sizes 
(low, medium and high resolutions) as well as multiple file formats (JPEG, TIF, EPS, etc.).

More information about using multimedia content in your PR and marketing campaigns:

Updating Your Tactical Mix in The New PR Landscape

The 8 Golden Rules of Writing Great Press Releases

Strategizing in Pictures: Next-Level Visual Storytelling

If you are interested in a no-pressure conversation about multimedia content and PR, please contact JCPR Vice President Dana Taormina at dtaormina@jcprinc.com.