Promoting Online Video

By Anne Saul

Web viewers ordinarily do not equate newspapers with video. The challenge is to create a habit among visitors to your Web site that your coverage includes many forms of delivering news and information – stories, photos, interactive graphics, databases -- and video.

When a big story breaks – particularly one that is very visual – people turn on their TV sets to see what is happening. With the right promotion, you can get viewers to come to your site to see the same story – done better.

Certainly prominent display and promotion on the Web site is important, but local newspaper readers won’t know that you have video versions/sidebars of the stories they are reading unless you tell them.

Here are some suggestions for creating the “video habit” among your newspaper readers and online viewers.

In the Newspaper

• Promote your video stories on Page One every day.
• Be specific. Tell readers that you have video about a specific story or event with links to the stories. (Don’t worry if the video was posted the previous day. Some next day newspaper readers might have missed it.) 
• Promote specific types of videos on appropriate pages. (For example, sports on the Sports front, a recipe video on the Food page.)
• Use a thumbnail, small headline and brief description of the video rather than a simple camera icon.
• Use the “Film at 11” approach: Tell readers about upcoming videos, such as the fact that you will have Friday night high school football highlights on your site at 11 p.m.

Promote on section fronts, and inside pages. If a story has a related video, embed an image with small headline and text telling readers what it is and where to find it.

On the Web

• Embed videos prominently on the home page above the scroll line.
• If you can’t play video on your home page, place a link with a thumbnail image and brief explanation of the video above the scroll line (The word “video” or a tiny camera icon are not effective.)
• Showcase video on every page possible, such as links to Sports videos on the Sports section page.
• Embed videos in appropriate stories.
• When a big story breaks post a notice on your Web site advising viewers that your coverage will include video. Promise it at a particular time – and deliver. If the video story isn’t completely edited, post what you have. Viewers want to see what the big accident looked like. Replace it later with the edited version.

The Cincinnati Enquirer added Halloween-themed video to its Halloween/Fall Holidays index. The idea here is not only to make video ubiquitous throughout the site, but to attach video sponsorships in key areas. (Tip from Liz Foreman, Director of Video Product Development, Cincinnati Enquirer.)

Also, being clear as to which “multimedia” feature is video can help site visitors find it easily among other multimedia features, such as photo galleries.

Blatant Community Promotion
Finally, use your staff resources. You won’t want to do this with a serious breaking news story, but consider using your video shooting as a vehicle for making the local community aware that you have video stories on your site. This can work particularly well in a small community. In its shooting of the filming of Johnny Depp’s movie “Public Enemies,” The Oshkosh (Wis.) Northwestern told fans being interviewed that they would be on the newspaper’s Web site.

Anne Saul is news systems editor for Gannett Co. She can be reached at asaul@gannett.com

First Published:
May 22, 2008