50% of Communicators Cite Time, Resources as Barriers to Use of Visual Elements in Press Releases & Content Marketing

NEW YORK, May 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The power of multimedia in grabbing reader attention and driving campaign results has been proven. Yet the majority of press releases issued lack compelling visual content ⁽¹⁾.  This disconnect is as striking as its cause: a survey of communications professionals revealed that time and resources--not budget--are the primary obstacles to increased multimedia use in press releases and other communications efforts. As many organizations plan to increase visual storytelling efforts going forward, the demand for tools that address these challenges also grows.

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/7230551-prnewswire-media-studio

Media Studio enables marketers and communicators to upload, organize and distribute photos, logos, videos, audio files and infographics for use in press releases and other communications. Available at no charge to PR Newswire members who utilize the company's Online Member Center, Media Studio makes it easier for marketers, public relations professionals and other users to swiftly surface and deploy visual content to enhance their digital communications, press releases and targeted PR pitches.

Learn more about Media Studio here: http://promotions.prnewswire.com/MediaStudio.html

"Organizations are creating more visual content than ever, but in many cases, they're not getting a return on that investment because much of the content is underutilized," noted Jason Edelboim, senior vice president of global media and distribution for PR Newswire. "Media Studio helps brands consolidate and easily surface their visual content, putting it at the fingertips of their content creators and quickly prepare it for sharing through our industry leading distribution network.  Organizations will get more value out of their multimedia content, PR and marketing departments will save time and money, the visual appeal of their messages will be enhanced, and the results of their campaigns will improve."

Organize, store & manage visual content

Designed to help communicators answer the demand for visual content, Media Studio is a feature of PR Newswire's customer portal, the Online Member Center, adding management of visual assets to the array of other communications workflow functions accessible to users, including content distribution and Visibility Reports, which detail the performance of the customer press releases and visual assets distributed by PR Newswire. Media Studio will enable communicators to:  

• Upload multimedia content in multiple formats and sizes, keeping all of an organization's photos, videos, audio and other files at the communication team's fingertips and ready to use, distribute and share.
• Organize and store media in one place, and create galleries by project, by campaign, by release, by file type-- whatever way best fits the business and team needs.
• Distribute multimedia content and add visuals to news releases to drive message visibility and capture more value from visual assets.

The end of searching internal systems for images and video?

"Anyone who has ever searched shared drives, combed through email backlogs or waded through a company intranet looking for an image to use in a press release or other corporate communications will appreciate Media Studio," said Sarah Skerik, PR Newswire's vice president of strategic communications.  "Creating galleries of images, such as all of our infographics or all the visual content related to a specific product, has already proven to be a big timesaver for our marketing and social teams."

Easily download images in different sizes

Media Studio users can also download and save different sizes of the same images for use in other communications channels by simply selecting the size required for the task.

"The ability to download images in a range of sizes, for different uses - such as blogs and social networks - is one of my favorite features of Media Studio," Skerik noted. "Being able to do this myself on the fly has eliminated a real headache for me and our in-house designer, who previously handled all my requests for different sized images.  We're both saving time and eliminating a process hurdle that slowed many communications."

About PR Newswire 

PR Newswire (www.prnewswire.com) is the premier global provider of multimedia platforms that enable marketers, corporate communicators, sustainability officers, public affairs and investor relations officers to leverage content to engage with all their key audiences. Having pioneered the commercial news distribution industry 60 years ago, PR Newswire today provides end-to-end solutions to produce, optimize and target content — from rich media to online video to multimedia — and then distribute content and measure results across traditional, digital, mobile and social channels. Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimization network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire enables the world's enterprises to engage opportunity everywhere it exists. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, and is a UBM plc company.

Footnote:

1.       76% of PR Professionals Believe Video is Underutilized

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/7230551-prnewswire-media-studio

SOURCE PR Newswire Association, LLC