Streaming video provides a number of useful opportunities for maximising potential of an existing corporate video. And compared to other distribution media such as DVD or CD-ROMs it also offers a cost-effective solution for broadcasting a new corporate presentation to a wider audience.

Although streaming video is certainly not a new concept and has been around for some time, it’s now easier than ever to add streaming video content to your website. The technology required to enable video streaming is widely available, it’s relatively inexpensive and with dramatic growth in high speed, broadband internet connections, a growing number of internet users can now view high quality, streaming video on their computers.

In this article, leading corporate video & business television producer, John Howarth, explains some of ways in which streaming video content can be made to work effectively for your business and produce tangible results.

Provide Compelling Content Try to provide content that creates a real interest for viewer. Instead of simply informing them of your key corporate values – typical narrative being ‘how successful we are, great products & services we offer, our featured clients’ - why not turn message into something that is actually useful and engaging to watch.

Take for example a company that manufactures kitchen products. Whilst you could produce a video to establish company values by highlighting such areas as quality of craftsmanship and original design of product, this information is almost certainly available more easily on web pages. It could be far more interesting for viewer to provide them with a series of recipes, which feature products being used in context.

For hard-core publicity insiders, though, there’s a rhythm to generating coverage, based upon natural ebb and flow of seasons. Such an approach can help you score publicity throughout year, and will help keep your eye on ball from January through December.

Essentially, a yearlong approach consists of two strategies:

* Timing your existing stories (new product introductions, oddball promotions, business page features, etc.) to fit needs of media during particular times of year.

* Crafting new stories to take advantage of events, holidays and seasonal activities.

Before we run through four seasons of publicity, a few words about lead time. In this age of immediacy (only a few seconds separate a Matt Drudge or a CNN from writing a story and putting it before millions), it’s easy to forget that, for many print publications and TV shows, it can be weeks -- and sometimes months -- before a completed story sees light of day.

The phrase lead time simply refers to amount of time needed for a journalist to complete a story for a particular issue of a magazine or episode of a TV news program. For example, a freelancer for an entertainment magazine may need to turn in a story on Christmas movies by September 15. That’s a lead time of three months, time needed for editor to review and change piece, issue to be typeset and printed and distributors to place issues on newsstands before December. Lead time can range from a day (for hard news pieces in newspapers) to a few days (newspaper features) to a few weeks (weekly magazines) to many months.

The longest leads are domain of "women’s books" like Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens. These publications often have a lead time of up to six months, which means they need information for their Christmas issues as early as May!

Here’s a tip to help you discover lead time of a particular publication you’re targeting: call advertising department of publication and request a media kit. Since advertisers need to know when their ads must be submitted, each issue’s lead time is clearly stated in media kit.

Factor lead time into your planning as you look over following sections. If you have a great story idea for Rolling Stone’s summer issues, you need to be on ball well before Memorial Day.

The Four Seasons of Publicity:

First Quarter: January - March

What Media’s Covering: Early in year, media is looking ahead. It’s a great time to pitch trend stories, marketplace predictions, previews of things to expect in year ahead, etc. If a new President is being inaugurated, you’ll see lots of "Will new administration be good for (textile/film/cattle ranching/Internet/...or any other) industry?" types of pieces. This is a good time to have something provocative, or even controversial, to say about your industry.