Thanks to Publicity Hound Laura Jackson for calling attention to the issue of video pitching—in other words, pitching a blogger by creating a clever video in which you are shown delivering the pitch.
Blogger Jeremiah Owyang, a web strategist shown here, posted this item in which he raved about the clever video pitch from two authors who wanted to call his attention to their new ebook on social media marketing.
I commented and said that even though video pitching is OK now, I predict many publicists and others will be trying it instead of conventional pitching by phone or email, and the technique will become overused. I also thought the intro to the video, in which one author made light of Jeremiah’s name (“Jeremiah was a bullfrog…” from the Three Dog Night hit “Joy to the World”) was a risky way of trying to catch somebody’s attention. You never know if the journalist or blogger is sensitive about their name.
The Jeremiah reference also ate up precious time. Video pitches, regardless of how clever, need to be short. This one ran a minute and 40 seconds.
For more tips on pitching bloggers, see my article “Let Bloggers Create Publicity for You.”
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