See What’s Out There

One of my presentations at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (08NTC) was The Age of YouTube: Using Online Video to Reach the Masses.

Here is the session description:

Broadband is finally here and the organizations that are creating compelling and viral video content are reaping the rewards. Those gala dinner videos are no longer enough. Readily available digital video cameras and editing software allow your organization to capture stories and introduce a wider world to your mission. Video content can be seamlessly integrated into your website and provide the compelling hook for fundraising and advocacy. Portable media players enable you to embed your message in hundreds of sites. But, how do you capitalize on the opportunity?
Takeaways:

1. The benefits to using web video
2. Case studies of innovative uses of video
3. How to effectively use video in your e-campaigns

I opened the session looking at the world we live in — the environment nonprofit messages are competing with. Here is the video I showed at the start of the session:

Here is the slide deck I used for the session. Mostly, these are just illustrative of talking points.

| View | Upload your own

Here is are relevant links to the videos we talked about from the session:

The power of video to breakthrough all the clutter. Example: Yes. We. Can.

The dinner video.
Other pieces you can make from a dinner video. (American Jewish World Service Passover Video)

Bread for the World video we showed as an example of something easy you can do with your staff.

Videos from Amnesty International showing both the man-on-the-street technique and how you can use video in an online campaign and how you can make videos with very different tone out of the same source material.

The funny video.
The serious video.

The PSA type video. An example from Chicago Foundation for Women and a very edgy UK one from Greenpeace International.

A documentary-style video from Columbia College Chicago.

Care2 is an online community where you can promote a video and seed your list in order to reach new audiences. If you are interested, you can learn more by calling Clinton O’Brien
Vice President, Business Development
Email: partners[at]earth.care2[dot]com
Phone: 202-785-7308

AOL quietly offers a program of free banners for certain organizations. If you are interested you should call us at See3 and we can tell you more about it.

If I left something out of this list that I mentioned in the session, please let me know with a comment.

Steve Grove’s YouTube for Nonprofits Tip Sheet. (Steve did not make the session at the last minute, but we got his tips. I will ask Steve some of the questions and publish the answers.)

The Basics

• Reach Out. Post videos that get YouTube viewers talking, and then stay in the conversation with comments and video responses.

• Partner Up. Find other organizations on YouTube who complement your mission, and work together to promote each other.

• Keep It Fresh. Put up new videos regularly and keep them short—ideally under 5 minutes.

• Spread Your Message. Share links and the embed code for your videos with supporters so they can help get the word out.

• Be Genuine. We have a wide demographic, so high view counts come from content that’s compelling, rather than what’s “hip.”

Your Channel:

• Design Your Channel. Go to Channel Design, then choose a color scheme to match your logo or other materials, and decide which modules you’d like to display on your public profile.

• Add Banners and URLs. Go to Branding Options, upload your icons and banners, and enter any of the other options you’d like to use.

• Choose Your Top Video. The top video on your channel automatically plays each time someone visits your page—choose it wisely. Update this video regularly to keep it fresh, or keep your most important video there as an introduction.

• Get Donations Flowing. Sign up for Google checkout, then go to your Google Checkout Options, enter your ID and Merchant Key, and choose donation amounts. Once you’ve filled in the information, the button will appear on your public profile and all of your video pages.

Your Content:

• Direct Dialogue. Make videos that create a dialogue about your work and what you’re trying to achieve. Ask questions and solicit video responses.

• Call to Action. Harness the power of user-generated content by asking supporters to submit videos to your cause. Create a group to collect these videos together; find ways to give recognition to the best ones.

• Tell Serial Stories. Engage viewers with a series of videos that tell a story around a specific theme, and keep them coming back for more. Once you’ve created a few episodes, put them into a playlist. This allows you to develop several video narratives targeted at particular demographics.

• Respond to Current Events. Address relevant news stories by posting videos that explain your position. You can then embed them in emails to your supporters—a video message can be more effective than a text-laden email.

• Use Endorsements. Whether they’re from celebrities or people you’ve impacted, it helps to have supporters chiming in about why your work matters.

Networking and Distribution

• Tag and Title Well. Tag and title your videos with relevant keywords—that’s how users will find your content as they navigate YouTube.

• Embed, Embed, Embed. Broadcast your videos over the web by embedding them on your website and encouraging supporters to do the same on theirs.

• Click “Subscribe”. Subscribe to the YouTube channels you’re interested in to stay up-to-date on their content; they may return the favor.

• Engage and Interact. Draw attention to your work by interacting with both allies and adversaries through video responses, text comments, or joint projects/debates.

• Make Web Traffic a Two-Lane Road. Use your video description field and branded banner URL to drive users to your website, and link to your YouTube channel from your website to encourage people to interact with your video content here.

For video production tips, go to: http://youtube.com/video_toolbox

We are in the middle of the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards. These are annual awards sponsored by See3 and NTEN to showcase the video work of nonprofits in the US and around the world. The winner will get an expense paid trip to the Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco next year.

I am just in awe of the work people are doing out there. Not every video is great, but the work is so important and often so moving. Some of the videos are thoughtful and emotional. And some are funny. You can see for yourself at the home page of the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards and click on the Watch button to see the videos.

Here’s a funny entry from Greenpeace International.

The last session at the Convio Summit in Austin was well attended, and a fun way to finish the event on Friday. Called “Web 2.0 – New Outreach and Fundraising Techniques,” the topic of this workshop is something every nonprofit marketing manager and online communications professional wants to talk about. The presenters were Carie Lewis of the Humane Society, and Tim Fullerton of Oxfam America, who both gave great insight on what’s happening in the trenches – actual day-to-day examples of how nonprofits can work online communities to gain new supporters, coming directly from the people writing the blog posts, friending people on MySpace, and testing new strategies.

Carie opened with an intro to social media. She says social networks are “not just a bunch of lonely teenage boys.” 84% of people comment, 82% message others, and 39% create content. She notes that people really rely on social networks for influence on decision-making. To me, this confirms as viable the strategy of finding those community leaders who will carry your torch for you, and then messaging them with content to distribute to their friends. She acknowledged it can be very time consuming, and reiterated a suggestion See3 often makes to our clients: get interns and volunteers!

Both HSUS and Oxfam’s primary efforts are on what Carie calls “the big four”: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. I agree based on sheer traffic volume, the first 3 are no-brainers for any nonprofit to start. However, neither Carie nor Tim discussed social bookmarking or social news strategies in any depth, and Digg, Stumble Upon, and del.icio.us certainly have enough traffic to warrant a deep approach.

On MySpace: Both Oxfam and HSUS prove what we already know from Greenpeace and others – MySpace is a great place to get new advocates. How did they get so many friends? One at a time. When she started the MySpace page, Carie literally requested friends one by one. Tim started by seeing who was already talking about Oxfam. They recommend spending an hour per day building your network. Oxfam now has a very nice custom page. They both use the MySpace blog, which reminds us again to speak to the community where they are, don’t try and drag them over to your main blog. HSUS is now getting 200 friend requests/day. Of the people that friend them, 29% found their page via search, and 13% came from their website. If you are a small organization, you won’t get that traffic. But 36% discovered them through a friend’s profile. This shows the viral potential of raising awareness in the social networks. Tim says MySpace is not good for fundraising, although we have seen some examples of orgs running successful fundraising campaigns, such as Dollars for Darfur.

On Facebook: I think everyone agrees it’s very early. So far, the only real strategy to analyze besides creating groups is the Causes application. Tim says it’s great to see thousands of people join the Oxfam cause, but he does not know who those people are and has no way to follow up with them. Carie says HSUS has raised $20k through the Causes app, though I’m not finding that in my search of Causes. Regardless, very few orgs (though some) have raised real cash via the Causes app. Developing custom Facebook apps may be the way to go, as already discussed on this blog.

On YouTube: everyone loves video. Oxfam ran a campaign against Starbucks with a video being crucial to the resulting success. HSUS ran a video contest during the outcry over the Michael Vick story that received 22 submissions, over 43,000 views of the contest intro video (featuring Hulk Hogan), and garnered 2,000 new list members. They ran their contest on YouTube, but See3 has a private label, fully customizable video contest hosting, management, and marketing solution.

On blogging and blogger outreach: They both moderate every single comment on the blog (they recommend not to allow auto-posting), and someone responds personally to each comment. They also suggest: make it personal, using your real voice; don’t reprint press releases or other web stories; be concise (advice I am not following here ). There was a question from the audience on blogger outreach, from someone who got no traffic from buying an ad on a relevant blog, and got no love from the blogger either. Carie and Tim say customize and personalize each message to bloggers, warm them up, and sell your story. Carie suggests offering exclusivity on a news story in return for promotion, and reminds us to always ask them to link back to your blog. Shana Glickfield of Issue Dynamics Inc., a blogger and consultant on blogger relations, added that your first contact with a blogger should not be an ask. You should touch base with them prior to your campaign, send them swag and information of interest on an ongoing basis.

On Second Life: Tim and Carie both say stay away. I say wait for the MacArthur Foundation’s year-long exploration of the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds, and for significantly increased daily activity on Second Life, and in the meantime focus on video and other live action social media opportunities.

On Friday I went to a social networking panel at Yearly Kos and this is the last thing I have to write up from the conference. The title of the session was “Politics 2.0 - How social networks and new media are changing politics.” On the panel we had Amy Rubin, Stephanie Taylor, Beka Economopoulos and Ruby Sinreich. I didn’t stay for the entire thing, but what I caught was good.

First up was Ruby Sinreich. Her subject was, what makes for effective social networks. Here are some notes:

1. Strong Social Ties
a. personal relationships
b. trust
c. awareness - you have to know the network exists

2. Common Story - we have to be on the same page (eg. Sorry Everybody)

3. Communication grid so people can talk to each other

eg. drinkingliberally.com which is online and offline
one-to-many. You have to have the ability to communicate.

4. Shared Resources
a. data information - eg. wikipedia
b. skills and expertise
c. money
d. space

5. Clarity of Purpose
a. do you feel like a member?
b. knowing what the network is for

After her talk she showed different types of network diagrams. According to Ruby, the mesh network is the best because it is not dependent on a single point — if one person leaves it stays together.

Amy Rubin, the Deputy Director of New Media from the John Edwards campaign then talked about their social network strategy as it related to promoting a webcast after the last debate.

My take-aways from her talk:

1. You can reach out to lots of online communities, but you need a single site that brings all the information together.

2. Meet people where they are, don’t make MySpace people come to Facebook or try to create groups that cross network platforms. Yes, it is more work, but you have to meet people where they live online.

3. Focus on influencers. Not everyone is equal, let the people who influence their friends move your message.

4. The list will grow naturally as you give people what they want where they want it. Don’t make them leave their comfort zone to do something you want them to do. List growth comes when people are interested.

5. Care2, working with them was great to seed the actions.

6. Created private leadership groups within each social network - give the people working the most something special.

The highlight of the session was Beka Economopoulos from Greenpeace. Yes, her name alone would make it a highlight.

She is an online organizer for Greenpeace. Her history is with off-line organizing and so her job is to see how we can leverage social networks and integrate web 2.0 platforms to leverage off-line results. In other words… can you use the web to get people to show up and do things in the real world.

She organizes days of action so people can participate to do bake sales or congressional visits. Greenpeace has 65,000 friends in MySpace. Getting friends is not a communications strategy — MySpace isn’t a web page it’s a network. She had a nice analogy for this. “A friend on a social network is like putting on a bumper sticker.” It’s a sign of affiliation but that’s it.

At Greenpeace, they have a team of interns who work to respond to people it pays off. Their email list is growing and they consider those friends to be an extension of their email list because they send their newsletters and alerts to them as well. So the 65,000 new eyeballs and ears are great, but they are paying close attention to how to convert those people to activists.

She then showed us an amazing case study of action against Kimberly Clark, the big paper company. Kimberly Clark makes Kleenex and they heard that Kleenex was going to be shooting a commercial in Times Square. The commercial was to have real people sit on a couch and tell the camera about their “Kleenex moment.” This makes for great TV because it is an authentic voice. Beka called this the “fetishization of the reality TV genre.” And it set them up for a fall.

Greenpeace inserted themselves into the the story. They are focused on what she called “narrative driven campaigning and culturally focused organizing.” Which is to say, paying attention to what the symbols in the culture are that are resonating and how you can insert yourself into the story and point those symbols in new a direction and with new meaning. So Beka and her merry band brought their own crew and hidden mics and inserted themselves into this commercial shoot. The goal was to educate people about the fact that Kleenex is made from virgin forests and uses no recycled content.

What’s terrific here is not only how well this worked, but how they used the product of it to create a story and training video. The idea with this video is to empower more people to take their own actions and to get people thinking that they too can become an activists. Have a look:

One thing you will notice is that it’s long for web video. She said that friends thought it was too long but it holds together to tell a story — more training video than PSA. All the people in the action are new people. The guy who did the sound bites had never done anything before, now they are all hooked. Beka then promoted this to blogs, focusing on online progressive news and environmental blogs, then promoted it to ad agency and brand people.

Her conclusion was that there is a flattening of politics with over-saturation of media and so organizations should focus their energy and resources when and where you have good content. Amen Sister!

She also said, to my great delight, that there is no such thing as virability. You have to work the communities to get critical mass. She said that on MySpace they are getting very high conversion rates and that people who were individually messaged on a bake sale had a 15% conversion rate to off-line participation and that their average is 10% conversation. That’s huge.

I am looking forward to seeing what they do next.