What Every PR Person Should Know About Vitching

April, 2010

Just as consumers are captivated by social media, so are reporters. And what better way to dazzle them than to combine the two mediums they know and love—traditional and digital media.
Many of us PR practitioners grew up in the era of VNRs (video news releases). But now they are being used to help spread information over the Web, often through e-mail or on YouTube. Believe it or not, VNRs have the ability to reach consumers and journalists with your key messages sans text-heavy e-mails.

This method—dubbed “vitching” (video pitching)—integrates traditional outreach with the digital caché that reporters and consumers crave. The rules of vitching are easy:

1. Keep it simple. Don’t bury the link to your VNR too deep into the pitch. Post the link upfront in your e-mail with limited text to increase visibility and in turn awareness.  Remember, the main goal of your vitch is to have the reporter watch the VNR.
2. Easy replication. Just as a reporter would replicate a press release for a print publication, the VNR should also be easy to utilize for a media outlet’s online counterparts.
3. Post online. Make sure your VNR is also available through popular social media websites, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. And remember to include key words in your VNR’s title and description, so it will show up on search engines.
4. Share with those who care. And for a vitch, that means TV, radio and online outlets. If your VNR showcases the expertise of your campaign’s spokesperson, this gives TV and radio outlets a chance to “audition” any potential guests for their show. For online outlets, the ask is easy—if they are interested in the campaign, they will post your VNR to their website.

The bottom line is, in a world where the number of unique visitors to YouTube vastly outnumbers those visiting sites like CNN.com and NYTimes.com, we need to update conventional methods to meet current demands. Think outside the box, keep it simple and vitch away.