Last week, eMarketer published some great statistics on online video. This year, eMarketer estimates that 66.7% of US Internet users—147.5 million people—are watching video online each month. By 2014, that figure is forecast to rise to 77% of Internet users, or 193.1 million people!

Are they watching your videos?

From a PR standpoint, I’ve been talking with a lot of clients over the past year about the importance of online video. And with the advent of the Flip and other similar, low-cost, easy-to-use cameras, there’s no reason your company can’t populate a YouTube channel!

Plus, online video proves to be a great addition to your online press releases and blog posts, giving journalists, bloggers and the general public an additional way to receive and understand your news. With the advent of social media releases, it’s becoming increasingly more important to make your releases as robust as possible, and including video is a great way to do that.

So when you have news to share, grab someone from your company and have them talk about it for a minute. Or if you’re talking about a location, try to film a virtual tour (Pyxl did this when we announced our new office). Utilize a Flip camera to give an online product demo. Have happy customers do video testimonials. The opportunities are endless…

Once you have your video, edit as necessary, upload it to your YouTube channel, and embed it in your press release, blog post, etc. And now you’re taking advantage of one of the newest, coolest tools available. And if you need help, talk to Pyxl.

In my opinion, every PR pro should have a Flip camera in their toolkit. I know I do ; )

*Photo from Nick J Webb. Used under Creative Commons.