Last week, Michael Hoffman spoke about online video as part of the “Social Media for Cause Marketers” workshop at the 2009 Cause Marketing Forum.
He spoke about how the web is changing from an electronic brochure to an interactive channel, how video can enhance your existing cause campaigns, and about redefining what “viral” really means. Check out his slidedeck below and leave a comment if you have any follow-up questions.
Social Actions’ Change the Web Challenge is a one-of-a-kind online competition that aims to inspire third-party developers to build innovative tools that make it easy for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference.
See3 is a proud media sponsor of this event which will engage websites, programmers, bloggers and nonprofits around the world interested in using their skills and networks for social change. See the slideshow below for details about the contest (hint: there are exciting prizes!)
We’ve been talking a lot about online video, so we decided to get it on tape. The result is the See3 Guide to Online Video, a 7-part video series created as an introduction to online video for nonprofits. Below you’ll find video #1, as well as descriptions of the whole series.
For beginners, this is your chance to get started. And for the experts out there, this is an easy tool to share with your less web-centric colleagues to get everyone on the same page.
These videos are for everyone, so please feel free to spread them around—through your blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, email, newsletter, whichever way suits you best.
1. The World We Live In
Today the web fully supports video. And that requires a new paradigm for how you think about video, how you document your work, and how you reach out to your constituents.
2. Why Video Matters
Video breaks through the noise of everything that’s happening on the web. Video is the most compelling content on the web today, and it’s the content people are spending the most time with.
3. Building A Media Library
If your organization doesn’t have a camera, you need to go out and buy one today. Then you need to start capturing the important things you do and build a media library that you can reuse and repurpose.
4. Finding Your Story
There are millions of stories you can tell about your organization. But how do you make it personal to your viewers, and how do you bring passion and energy to the stories you want to tell?
5. Telling Your Story
Start by asking yourself a handful of basic questions. Then consider the best way to communicate this story to your audience. What form will it take? Documentary? Man-on-the-street? PSA?
6. Using Video Effectively
Everyone wants a “viral video”, but random people watching your video may not necessarily become donors or advocates for you. Thinking about video in terms of campaigns will help you retain audience and deepen engagement.
7. Marketing Your Campaign
You have a great campaign, but how do you reach the right people online? Map the community and join the conversations already taking place all over the web. Tell them about your cause and drive them to your microsite to learn more and take action.
The Sierra Club has a great new campaign called “Lightbulbs to Leadership“, which aims to remind Americans that it takes more than changing lightbulbs to fix global warming – it takes changing the will of our leaders.
We helped them create a series of three videos for the campaign, the first of which you can see below. The other two will roll out in the coming weeks, so make sure you join the campaign to stay updated. You can also find these folks on MySpace and Facebook, so there’s no lack of ways to stay involved.
The campaign has a lot of great components at work here, including a federal petition, a lightbulb joke contest, and “Lightbulbs to Leadership” house parties. We talk a lot about video-centric microsites here at See3, so check out what they’ve done!
The Obama campaign has already responded to the gas tax issue with a new ad. What’s amazing is how short the cycle for new creative has become. Can your organization produce something new in two days?
The last session I attended at the NTC in New Orleans was:
E-Advocacy: Mission over Membership
Designed by Mr. Charles Lenchner | DemocracyInAction.org
E-Advocacy can mean different things to different people. What if we were able to separate the organizational self interest to build membership and raise funds from the planning of issue based advocacy campaigns? What would campaigning look like if we only cared about the real world result? Our panelists will discuss this issue using real world examples of successful campaigns, along with insights that can help YOUR organization plan better advocacy campaigns.
Takeaways:
1. Guidelines for getting mission driven results
2.Strategies and tactics that work
3. Cheat sheet: how to plan your next online advocacy effort
Here’s 2 minutes of Colin talking about how he was part of a campaign that went after Toyota on environmental issues as part of the campaign to increase fuel economy standards. He offers some advice on online advocacy campaigns.
