Multimedia Press Kits for the Internet Age -- Dancing into the Future

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July 25, 2007

Multimedia Press Kits for the Internet Age

Eva Yaa Asantewaa and I are about to post another audio interview on the Great Dance Podcast blog.

As you can see in the post that includes an audio interview that Eva did with Japan Society Artistic Director Yoko Shioya, we included multimedia materials - pictures and videos - highlighting some of the upcoming performances for their fall 2007 season.

If it were not for the excellent media kit provided by the Japan Society, these pictures and videos would probably not have been included. Eva and I worked with two public relations specialists on this project: Shannon Jowett of Japan Society and Meg Own of The Karpel Group.

Media Kit Contents

In addition to the printed press releases, the media kit included a CD-ROM with a large gallery of high-resolution pictures of dancers and dance companies who will be performing as part of the Japan Society's Fall 2007 Performing Arts Season. In addition to the pictures, a master Microsoft Word document included thumbnail images of all the photos along with all of the important information for each photo - name of performer, name of photographer and other details.

So it was easy for me to grab the pictures I wanted, downgrade the resolution for the web, and copy and paste the captions for each photo.

A DVD included video clips that were shown during the press conference we attended. I ripped a couple of the videos from this DVD, converted the files to Flash format and uploaded them to the web.

From my standpoint, the Japan Society's media kit was very helpful and thorough. In particular this media kit was web-publishing friendly in its inclusion of digital pictures and video clips.

Putting Together Multimedia Press Kits

I would like to encourage all PR people who promote dance to think about how your media materials can be used by others outside of the traditional print press. And to consider how you can prepare materials in a way that it will make it relatively easy for online writers to add your pictures and videos to their stories.

Last year I wrote a post about social media press releases that addresses the issue of how multimedia materials can be offered to writers in new ways. I'll expand on this post soon and offer specific suggestions on how dance photos, videos and audio programs can be packaged and distributed via the Internet.

If you know of examples of web-friendly media kits for dance, please share.

Posted by Doug Fox on July 25, 2007 9:22 AM

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3 Comments

Michelle said:

we recently built a website containing everything that a small company could need at http://www.allplaydance.co.uk. There are photos, videos and info on the company.

the same material will be going onto a DVD. DVD's are perfect because they cost about 20p each (about 40 cents) and can be made on demand to reduce costs.

About 8 years ago we used to make promo kits that went onto floppy disks, how times have changed.

Added: July 25, 2007 3:00 PM | Permalink

Shannon Jowett said:

Doug - Thank you very much for your commendation of our materials!

The formation of these materials--an often complicated process given the sheer number of performances Japan Society produces within a year--hinges upon a stalwart and energetic communications team, it is true (my humble gratitude to Kuniko, Aya and everyone at Karpel). But of utmost importance is the professionalism and dedication of our performing arts programming staff, without which none of it would be possible.

In addition to your invaluable points to PR people, your presenting readers should hopefully realize verbiage, images, and video content needs be the most concise and accurate materials available from their origin. People lament (or ignore) the hours it takes to edit a 20-page grant application to a one-page sell sheet, select key images out of rolls and rolls of options, or cut an hour video to 5 minutes. But once these are done, you are press-ready if handling promotion in-house, or, if outsourcing, you have given your publicist valuable time needed for outreach and follow-up.

Apologies for my unsolicited thoughts, and I look forward to your continued coverage!

Shannon

Added: July 25, 2007 5:30 PM | Permalink

Doug Fox said:

Shannon, thanks for your thoughts and it was good meeting you at the Japan Society.

I agree with what you say about the need for concise and accurate materials. The number one thing that slows me down the most is not being able to find specific details related to a performance, dancer or venue. This is especially the case on websites. Sometimes it's frustrating to have to search through multiple webpages to find specific details that ought to be aggregated on a single page.

Added: July 26, 2007 2:25 PM | Permalink

About

Since 2005, Doug Fox's blog has covered the intersection of dance and the Internet. A primary focus is to help dancers and dance companies use the Internet and their dance videos for marketing, educational, creative and revenue-generation purposes.

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Dancing into the Future

July 25, 2007