Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

PR Newswire recently took a look at how press releases sent on the wire perform in terms of number of views.  The stats are quite revealing: Need I say more?

Adding multimedia to your press releases, articles and blog posts will give you a remarkable bump in views.

And since that’s the goal of content, it’s truly amazing to me that only 55% of the PR folk recently polled by PRESSfeed about their online newsroom content, say they are using multimedia with news content. Seriously? Look at the graph again, please. A 77% increase in views.

A study of corporate websites and newsrooms shows that not many companies use multimedia with their press releases. The vast majority are text only....

A new study shows that companies realize they need custom news content, but they don't understand how to leverage this media for search and social marketing.

Online newsroom trends

...The report found that 98 percent of the world’s largest brands have their own online newsrooms. These departments, however, experience unique challenges. Thirty-five percent struggle to keep news up to date, and 51 percent fail to present quality images within articles. More, 38 percent of online newsrooms do not categorize, tag or optimize their news content. This leaves businesses missing major SEO benefits that exclusive news content can provide.

On the positive side, 29 percent use video in web content, highlighting the value of video marketing for brands telling their unique stories. Additionally, 65 percent link from their homepages directly to their newsrooms, which drives added traffic and assists in greater conversion rates.

As online newsrooms improve, it will become more competitive for brands to learn how to leverage this media for greater visibility. The maturation of the market will strengthen the power of content creation, and consumers will become more infatuated with their favorite brands online....