Opinion: The key earned media video trends in 2018
Rory Green, videographer at specialist broadcast agency Shout! Communications, predicts how video content in the PR industry will evolve in 2018.
Rory Green
Video content is ever changing. If you look at the most popular videos from a couple of years ago they are completely different in style and content to videos that are trending today. While it is difficult to predict exactly what the video landscape will look like in 2018 there are current trends that will continue to shape what PR video will look like next year.
If you look at your social media feeds, you will not have to scroll down too far before you see a video. Increased video presence on social is not a new trend, but what has changed is the style of the videos that are watched.
There are many social media platforms out there now, and each has its own audience and style. That means a video that will work on one may not be as successful on another. So, ensuring that your videos can work across all platforms will be very important in 2018. This could mean filming in a way that the footage can be repurposed to work across multiple platforms.
Sound, or should I say lack of it, will also continue to influence how we make our PR videos in 2018. Since most videos play without sound you need to make your video work visually. This means that most videos now have subtitles. However, our attention spans getting shorter and audiences may switch off if they have to read lots of text! Therefore, you can expect to see more visual, interesting, ways of making videos work silently.
News and lifestyle websites are embracing video content and many now have their own in-house videographers and editors. This means that they are wanting to re-purpose B-roll into their own online package rather than taking a PR branded more polished film.
When we create a b-roll for television we ensure that it is filmed in a news style so that broadcasters can seamlessly edit our footage into their own packages. This is also the case for websites that use b-roll. However, the style of filming will differ from television, for example you may have to leave space for text and frame your shots in a way that they can be cropped to fit on multiple video platforms.
One final trend for 2018 will be how technology will change PR videos. Virtual reality headsets are now extremely affordable and it won’t be long till they are commonplace in everyone’s household. This will mean that PRs will need to start taking advantage of this new technology. It is genuinely exciting to think of the possibilities of being able to fully immerse your audience into the brand or product that you are PRing!
- Pictured: Rory Green filming with Chris Packham
To discover more on how video content will shape the PR industry in 2018, enter your details below and download Cision’s latest white paper – Four trends that will shape PR and earned media in 2018.
