 POSTED BY Michael Hoffman OCT 19, 2009 |
Why Every Nonprofit Should Be On YouTube I recently put together a webinar about how nonprofits can use YouTube effectively. This issue has become much more important than it once was. When YouTube first started, all of 4 years ago, the quality of the video was bad, the audience wasn’t so huge and messages about changing the world just seemed totally out of place amid the poor amateur video that was appearing on the site. My, how the world changes quickly. YouTube has improved so much in the past few years that looking at the early version would be hardly recognizable. The changes are too numerous to mention but the quality has improved, user control has improved and what people expect to find on YouTube and how they interact with it has also changed. I have pasted my entire 1-hour webinar below. It has both audio and the slidedeck and I was told it was quite packed with useful info. If I had to choose a few key takeaways, this is what I would tell you: 1. Search is critical. Not only are YouTube videos showing up in Google first-page results, but YouTube itself has become a top destination for searches. So if you don’t have YouTube videos for your key search terms you are missing out. YouTube is now a CENTRAL part of an effective SEO strategy. 2. The YouTube Nonprofit Program is The Bomb. If you are a US or UK registered nonprofit, and you are not religious or political in nature, apply for the YouTube Nonprofit Program, today. Right now. It gives amazing benefits to nonprofits in terms of branding and functionality. 3. The best part of the YouTube Nonprofit Program is linkable annotations—the ability to put links, anywhere in a video, that actually go to your website. “Donate Now”, or “Sign the Petition” become links that really work. Finally, YouTube has the potential to drive engagement. (You can watch how this works here). 4. No excuses. Even if you don’t have a budget and are stressed for time you can create a channel on YouTube and put videos in it. You can use existing video assets, repurposed video assets and make simple videos using a Flip Video camera or other low-cost consumer product. 5. Spend some time browsing nonprofit videos for ideas about what you can do. Most likely you will come across something with a style or tone that you think is perfectly appropriate for your message. Flatter them and copy their approach. 6. Fill your YouTube Channel with Favorites from complimentary organizations. There are great videos already online that speak to your message. Leverage those also. With the new YouTube channel designs, you can use these as a playlist on your channel. Here’s the complete webinar. We are collecting questions about YouTube for future posts, so if you have questions, send them to info@see3.net |
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[...] See What’s Out There » Blog Archive » Why Every Nonprofit Should Be On YouTube blog.see3.net/2009/10/19/why-every-nonprofit-should-be-on-youtube – view page – cached I recently put together a webinar about how nonprofits can use YouTube effectively. This issue has become much more important than it once was. — From the page [...]
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by nfpn: Why Every #Nonprofit Should Be On YouTube http://bit.ly/3NlgAG...
As one of the 30 million deaf or hard of hearing in the U.S I think the big drawback to video on the web right now, and youtube included is lack of standards for captioning. And so the process of adding them is difficult. And any nonprofit should have accessibility high on their priority list. The added time to either caption or transcript YouTube video, to me, takes away its effectiveness.
Christopher, I think you make a valid and important point.
At the same time, things like Search are things that simply can’t be ignored by nonprofits. And so I think you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.
I am also hopeful that YouTube will get better in this regard. They had no way to add captions and now they do. I think this can get better. Something we should be advocating for. It would be helpful to have a model of how this could work better, so we can tell YouTube the direction we would like to see them go.
[...] See What's Out There » Blog Archive » Why Every Nonprofit Should … [...]
[...] YouTube is doing some cool things for nonprofits. One of those things is to leverage the YouTube community to make videos for nonprofits. They have a program called Video Volunteers, which encourages YouTube video makers to make videos about nonprofit issues. [...]
[...] YouTube, now the world’s second largest search engine, runs an excellent service for non-profits – with the ability to put links in your video that go directly to your website. It should definitely be considered as part of an effective SEO strategy – rather than just somewhere to shove old DRTV ads and odds and sods of old footage. Check out Michael Hoffman’s post on the subject to find out why. [...]
[...] YouTube 正在为非营利组织做一些很酷的事情。其中之一是让YouTube社区的用户为非营利组织拍摄视频。YouTube有一个叫做视频志愿者的计划，这个计划鼓励YouTube的视频制作者拍摄关于非营利领域话题的视频。 [...]