A guest post by Jiyan Wei of PRWeb.

People are spending more time watching more videos online than ever, and multimedia, like video, tends to hold their attention longer.

According to a Nielsen ratings report, “by June 2010, 136.2 million Americans had viewed 10.2 billion videos streams ... The average U.S. Internet user spent 194.6 minutes watching online video during the month.” This constituted a 3% rise from the year before. Plus, research shows that multimedia can improve time-on-page, which means you hold a viewer's attention for as much as 30 seconds longer.

To make the most out of your video content, explore these four simple ways to repurpose your online video:

1. Review your archives of company video.
Great content may be there that can be edited to provide a new look at your organization. Create a video newsroom within your website to make it easy for users and search engines to find the key content.

Ideally, each video should be on its own page and should be optimized for key messages.

Make sure you know what search terms your target audiences is mostly likely using, and then use the target phrases in the video title and summary to help increase visibility of the video in search results.

You can also invite the viewer to share the video into social streams, such as Facebook, by adding social-sharing buttons. If you have strong content, social sharing is a key channel to extend your reach.

2. Encourage viewers to participate.
According to Wikipedia’s description of consumer engagement, “increasing the engagement of target customers increases the rate of customer retention.”

This supports the philosophy that engaged viewers are more valuable prospects. To drive consumer engagement, incorporate interactive elements, such as commenting, rating and sharing your video clips, or participating in polls and quizzes regarding your content.

The more interaction you create with your viewers, the better the relationship building blocks, which can pay off in the form of an inquiry and eventually a sale.

3. Publish content where your target market is engaging.
When it comes to watching videos online, Google is king. It drives more traffic to video sites than Facebook, Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter combined, according to a report by Brightcove and TubeMogul.

Of the more than 300 video-sharing websites, YouTube is the leading outlet---but there are other great candidates near the top of the heap, including: Yahoo, Daily Motion, MySpace TV, and Metacafe. Make your videos even more appealing by tagging them with keywords and posting short descriptions. Alter the descriptions to fit each site and the audience served.

But remember, whichever outlet you choose, all site demographics are not created equal.  Research your target market first and understand which sites they frequent most often.

4. Embed video into your news release.
Copy and paste video into your press release, webpage, or blog post. When embedded video is clicked, it loads on a player within the page.

Not only does video dramatically enhance your content by giving a new look to your copy, it also increases your reach by appealing to those who may prefer to learn visually.

The use of multimedia and embedded repurposed video is a trend that is changing the face of online marketing.

Integrate your message into the places your potential customers frequent in a way they enjoy absorbing information, and you’ll tap into the social phenomenon of consumer engagement with great results.

Jiyan Wei is the director of Product Management for PRWeb and a frequent speaker at marketing, PR, and SEO events.