Michael Smart, Media Pitch PR Coach, of Michael Smart PR joins Doug Simon to discuss the value of using video during your media outreach efforts, changes in the way journalists accept produced video, and the findings of the D S Simon Media Influencers Report.If you would like to download a copy of the report please click here.

Michael Smart on the value of earned media:"You get much more of a credibility boost when it’s earned rather than paid.""Links are way more valuable than the traffic they send back to you site or your video. The higher value comes in the message they send to Google and the other search engines that NYtimes.com or mashable.com, a very trusted URL in Google’s mind; that this site values this content, so that’s a key signal to serve it up higher when we do our Google searches.""The act of creating social media helps PR people strip out the bad habits that were beat into us when writing news releases for the wire, when we can write a Facebook post or tweet in the same voice we use for our personal feeds."Michael Smart’s biggest takeaway from the Media Influencers Report:"The dominant majority of media outlets that will accept outside produced video. That’s a relatively new phenomenon. When I was a newspaper reporter, we couldn’t even accept a still photograph that we didn’t shoot and that was only 15 years ago.""Folks (journalists) will be receptive to stuff we produce, so long as we disclose it right, which is another one of your key findings. It should be really empowering to a lot PR Pros."