YouTube’s Game-Changing New Feature for Nonprofits
by Michael HoffmanThursday, September 10th, 2009
A few months ago YouTube announced that organizations that are in the YouTube Nonprofit Program would be able to use the overlay advertising feature to create donation links. They call the feature “Call To Action” and said that in their first test of this, Charity:Water raised $10,000 in one day.
At the Nonprofit Technology Conference in March while I was conducting a session about online video distribution, I mentioned to Steve Grove and Ramya Ragahvan—who runs the YouTube Nonprofit Program—that while this feature is nice, it is really limiting. In addition to only appearing in a very limited way on the video, it only works on YouTube and not when you embed the video on other sites. While Charity:Water raised a lot of money, I politely suggested that maybe it had as much to do with the video being featured by YouTube (and therefore getting a large amount of traffic) as with the new functionality.
But I knew they could make it much better.
In front of the NTEN crowd I challenged them: “What would be really amazing would be to allow for outside links in the annotations features.” The annotations feature is available to all YouTube video makers and allows for the user to put an overlay box on any part of any video. YouTube allows links to go in these boxes, but only links to other YouTube videos or YouTube channel pages. Ramya said they started with the overlay because the technology already existed and that they would be working on extending the annotations function.
I must admit that the cynic in me thought, “It’s really in YouTube’s interest to keep people on YouTube and not to allow them to leave.” In other words, I wasn’t holding my breath that they would create more ways that nonprofits could get people off of YouTube and on to engagement.
Imagine my surprise when Ramya sent me this email last week:
Hi Michael,
I’ve been meaning to drop you a note, because I remember that you mentioned that you would love the ability to externally link from annotations.
Happy to report that for nonprofits that are part of the YT Nonprofit Program, we have this functionality. All they’ll have to do, when creating an annotation, is click the “link” symbol and select “external link”. Then they’ll be able to link to external sites right from the annotation. Better still, these annotations should show up on embedded videos.
Please feel free to share with nonprofits you work with.
Best,
Ramya
Oh, share it I will!
Make no mistake, this is a game-changer. If you still aren’t sure what all of this means, it means that nonprofit YouTube videos can have buttons built into the videos that say DONATE NOW or SIGN THE PETITION and these buttons will work—they will link to any site you point them to. You can even go back to all your old videos that are on YouTube and make your logo into a clickable link, add annotations to donate with a link, and otherwise make your video into a center of engagement. This is now, by far, the most important reason to be in the YouTube Nonprofit Program.
People who watch videos on YouTube are very likely to do one thing when they are done…watch another video on YouTube. Not any more. With this new feature, YouTube can become a center for creating effective calls to action and engagement. Major props to Ramya and the entire YouTube team—you rock!
So that you can get see with your own eyes how this all works, we made this video (above) along with our partners at the Case Foundation as part of the Gear Up For Giving program. (Also, thank you to Beth for letting us shout about this news from the rooftop that is Beth’s Blog.)
September 10th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
[…] See What’s Out There » Blog Archive » YouTube’s Game-Changing New Feature for Nonprofits blog.see3.net/2009/09/10/youtube%E2%80%99s-game-changing-new-feature-for-nonprofits – view page – cached A few months ago YouTube announced that organizations that are in the YouTube Nonprofit Program would be able to use the overlay advertising feature to create donation links. They call the feature “Call To Action” and said that in their first test of this, Charity:Water raised $10,000 in one — From the page […]
September 11th, 2009 at 1:36 am
Hi, great news. When will this feature be available in the rest of the world (Europe, Switzerland, Germany)? Tried asking YouTube repeatedly, never got an answer…
September 11th, 2009 at 6:14 am
[…] This post was Twitted by kenyanpundit […]
September 11th, 2009 at 7:47 am
@Gabriele Bryant
You can already add external links using Vimeo. (You just need a Plus account, which costs about $5USD a month.)
Here’s an example:
http://www.resource-alliance.org/ifcmigration/
There’s a link to the registration page at the end of the video. (Are you going?) You’ll also notice the embedded video is HD enabled and the Vimeo branding with it’s link back to the Vimeo site have been removed.
In short, Vimeo is already doing what we in the EU want YouTube to do.
September 11th, 2009 at 9:51 am
[…] This post was Twitted by NonprofitSRQ […]
September 11th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Brad, thanks for that information. Vimeo is a great service with high quality video, but we see it used mostly as an embedded video solution — meaning we don’t think there is much traffic discovering new things on the Vimeo site.
The potential with YouTube’s change is that the audience — basically the entire web — is on YouTube and so an engaging, effective video could have real bottom line impact for an organization.
We do not know much about YouTube’s roll-out of the nonprofit functionality to other countries. We are also not happy that religious and political organizations are excluded from accessing the features of the nonprofit program.
September 11th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
[…] There’s a great new feature available for nonprofits on YouTube: annotations to external sites […]
September 15th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Hi Michael, Great post! On a (somewhat) related note, since you’ve been in contact with the folks who run YouTube Nonprofit Program … just wondering if you know how many nonprofits have been accepted into the program?
September 15th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Eileen, I don’t know. But I will ask! I haven’t seen any published figures around the program.
September 18th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Hi Michael
I was just thinking about how powerful the positioning of an actionable button can be for many of the emerging performing artists and groups we support. Buttons, or a handwritten piece of paper like yours (love that!), encouraging viewers to comment on a work in progress, answer a call to for artists, send a letter to a legislator etc further blurs the distinctions by empowering the creator, consumer, advocate, and the curious.
Speaking of the curious, do you know why religious and political organizations are excluded from the nonprofit program?
tx, hoong yee
http://queenscouncilarts.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=35&Itemid=286
September 29th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
[…] Kudos go to Michael Hoffman who has been working with Steve Grove and Ramya Ragahvan—who runs the YouTube Nonprofit Program—on improving their features for non-profits.John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up with John. Tweet It! Buzz It! Delicious It! Digg It! Reddit It! Stumble It! Share It! tweetmeme_url = ‘http://www.socialbrite.org/2009/09/29/youtubes-call-to-action-feature-for-non-profits-just-got-a-whole-lot-better/’;tweetmeme_source = ’socialbrite’; Tags:fundraisingYouTube Categories: tools RSS 2.0 feed to follow new comments. | Trackback […]
October 9th, 2009 at 2:41 am
With this new feature, Youtube can become a center for creating effective calls to action and engagement.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
[…] More importantly, are you giving your viewer the tools to take action easily? YouTube is thinking about these questions, and they have already created tools specifically for organizations in the YouTube for Nonprofit Program that allow you to create annotations in your video that link to an external website. […]
January 1st, 2010 at 7:32 pm
YouTube is great … people can faind everything there… only about accounts is problem couse you dont recive info about your registratin on email