Short version: I'm doing a webinar next week (Wednesday, May 23rd - 1pm EST) on using video in your HR practice - sign up here. You'll be glad you did.

Long version: This just in: The use of internet video is exploding.  People are reading less on the web and "watching" more." You knew that.

More importantly, have you thought about how the trends in online video impacts how you build your HR practice?  That's the key right?  Here are a couple of stats to help you know how important it is that you consider how to use video as an HR pro:

--Americans streamed 43.5 billion videos in December 2011, up 44% since December 2010, according to comScore’s 2012 US Digital Future In Focus report released a couple of months ago.  The study also showed that 105.1 million Americans now watch videos online each day, up 43% from 73.7 million in 2010.

--The average video view length is up from 5 minutes to 5.8 minutes, showing an increasing willingness to watch longer form content.

--The average viewer watches 239 videos per month!  239 at an average of 6 minutes per = 24 hours per month.

Wow.  The experts say that media companies have to take notice and consider how they can create video content to engage this growing audience and promote their traditional offerings.

I say that you and I as HR pros better get in front of this video trend as well.  Guess who is a part of that trend of dramatically increased video usage?  Employees and Candidates...

That's why the good folks at Fistful of Talent and the HR Capitalist are doing a webinar next week called The Future of Talent: 5 Ways to Use Video to Raise Your HR and Recruiting Game. Join us for this webinar, and we’ll give you the 411 for how to think about video within your HR or recruiting practice and a road map to get started in the following areas:

• Employment Branding – If you believe video is on the rise, then your text-based descriptions of your company culture aren’t going to cut it anymore.  We’ll give you examples of what companies like yours are doing to use video to build transparency around what a day in the life of your employees looks like.

• Recruiting – We’ll break down how today’s video technology transcends the old cliché “video conference” system used for remote video and actually creates a higher quality of interview, allowing you and your hiring managers to control the questions you want answered, across all early stage candidates.

• Role Play for Managers – Your managers need better skills related to how they manage people.  We’ll show you what smart companies are doing to weave role-play scenarios into all their managerial training, and how they’re using video to conduct skill practice and provide feedback related to the skill that managers use on a daily basis.

• Training Shorts Delivered via Mobile – Video makes training less of an event and more of a product delivered “just in time”.  We’ll discuss how innovative companies are breaking down training into bite size morsels delivered via mobile video.

• A “How To” Guide to Get Started with Video in Your HR/Recruiting Organization.  We’ll talk about how companies are building light infrastructure to deliver on the potential of video in the above areas – without breaking the bank.

Join me and the FOT crew as we break down the video scene and brainstorm about the best way to build video chops in your HR or recruiting practice.  Sign up here. You'll be glad you did.