New Media Bytes | Online journalism, web production and promotion

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More and more newspapers are looking to add video to their daily stories to help add something extra to their print product. This works great to add a different angle to a story that already has appeal. But what about hyping a story before it’s even been released?

The Ann Arbor News is doing just that by through a video uploaded to YouTube that tells the story of a groundskeeper at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The video shows the man doing what he’s done for 41 years, greeting students outside of the college. It also features interviews with students, staff and the groundskeeper himself.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=3TFTVkANIDI[/youtube]

So why is this cool? The video was released four days before the accompanying column by the News’ Jo Mathis. The News’ human interest video portrait had 34 views and two five-star ratings on YouTube over the weekend (typically low-traffic web days).

The News also included a link back to their site in the video description text and a slide in their video telling viewers to check the News’ site for the column. Although there’s no link directly to the column (as it hasn’t run yet), this is a cool way to get buzz going about a story and possibly build traffic back to the paper’s website.

I shared this video on my Facebook profile too. Maybe it will gain some legs in my network.

Have you tried promoting a story in the social networking circles before it was published? What were the results?