See What’s Out There

Here is the slide presentation I used for the session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (08NTC) called “A New Tool for Online Campaigns: How to Show, Tell and Activate with a Video-centric Microsite”

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Some links from the presentation:

Landing page for fundraising: Jews4NewOrleans.org
This is an example of a microsite designed to reach a different audience than the organization’s main site (Here’s their main site if you want to compare.)

Center for Global Development Main Site. Designed for policy wonks.
Global Development Matters Microsite. Designed for the general public.

BMW Video Focused Microsite designed to tell you something very different than the usual pitch. Relearn To Drive.

Election Microsites:
Hillary’s Fact Hub site
Obama’s Hillary Attacks site

Nothing But Nets — a great microsite because it is focused, with a clear ask and compelling media.

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.

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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.

In January, Barack Obama raised as much money, $28 million, as Howard Dean raised in his entire campaign last time around. And they have done it using $25 and $50 donors. Think about it. On the one side you have the traditional way to raise money — rich people asking other rich people to give. “Bundling” is when the partner asks all the associates to ante up the maximum to attend a local fundraiser.

An individual may give $2,300 per federal election. So if I give $2,300 to Clinton I am “maxed out” and the only way for me to do more is get $2,300 from my buddies. Lets say I am that law partner and by making a lot of calls I can get 50 people to max out for my candidate. That’s $117,300, including my own contribution. I become a Hillraiser.

The Obama campaign is raising money differently. They have raised lots of money from those small donors. For the Obama campaign to get to $117,300 from $25 donors mean they have 4692 people donating instead of only 51. Wow.

We care about this because we care about using the internet for fundraising and advocacy. What Obama is doing is a major milestone in the development of the web. The internet, only the internet, makes possible this kind of retail fundraising. There would simply be no other way to get people, excited in their own homes, across the country, inspired by speeches and videos, organized enough to get these donations flowing. People wouldn’t write the checks or fill out the forms, but they can click and give, just like they click to buy a book or a Pez dispenser or, in 2008, pay their parking tickets.

The Obama campaign says they have more than 350,000 donors this year so far. 350,000 donors! Holy smoke that’s a lot of donors. And they are talking about this many in just over a month.

What the internet makes possible, the candidate makes happen. The internet didn’t raise the money. Obama’s inspiration activated people and the internet made it possible to turn that excitement into dollars. As I have written before, the Obama campaign has been amazing at using video to make that excitement portable across the web, capturing those moments that get people juiced.

There is a lot to learn from this campaign and at See3 and among other nonprofit communicators we will be studying it for a long time to come.

At See3, we have been adding clients for social media marketing services for the past year. This is all about audience identification and message distribution. Finding your online niche and getting those influencers to engage and then influence their friends.

There are lots of organizations with just a toe in the water, others that are swimming away and some that are fully clothed, looking at the pool and wondering what it’s all about.

To measure this space by the job openings we can see some traction here. It seems that it’s hourly I am getting an email telling me that there is a job opening for an Online Marketing Director or an Online Community Manager, or an Internet Marketing Specialist or some other name that basically means the same thing.

The organizations that are hiring for these positions are the ones who are going full speed ahead. Humane Society, for example, is a leader in using social networking to spread their message. And so it is no surprise that they are hiring. They are seeing the return on investment from using social media tools — and video — and so they are beefing up their operations.

If you are not thinking about how to plan and staff your online strategy — which is becoming more lucrative AND more time consuming every day — you need to be.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2nd Annual DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards

Chicago, IL & Seattle, WA January 11, 2008

See3 Communications and NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network announce the co-sponsorship of the 2nd Annual DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards. Nonprofit organizations are encouraged to submit their videos to the contest, hosted on DoGooderTV, the video sharing platform for nonprofits. The grand prize winner will be announced at NTEN’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in New Orleans on March 21. The winner will be awarded an all-expense paid trip to the 2009 NTC to be held in San Francisco.

The theme of this year’s contest is From the Ground Up: Using Technology to Engage Constituents and Make the World a Better Place. The goal of the contest is to highlight the work of nonprofit organizations and to spread the word about the creative ways they employ media to bring about social change. Last year’s winner, Avaaz “Stop the Clash of Civilizations” received a standing ovation when played at the conference. This video has been viewed over 1.5 million times on YouTube.

Nonprofit organizations and their constituents are invited to submit videos used in support of a 2007 campaign. Videos can be from a wide variety of issue and interest areas including (but not limited to) activism, environment, education, disability, economic development, human services, international development, health, and the arts.

Entries will be accepted until February 15, 2008 at which time finalists will be determined. The finalists will be shown on www.DoGooder.tv beginning March 1, 2008; individuals will be able to vote on their favorite entry through March 20, 2008. For complete contest rules and to submit or view videos, please visit the video contest home.

See3 Communications creates compelling visual media and internet marketing initiatives that enable nonprofits to maximize exposure, deepen connections and produce results. Our background in video production, web development and nonprofit marketing and fundraising are combined to create campaigns with emotional appeal that compel target audiences to action. For additional information about See3 Communications, visit www.see3.net

NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network is the membership organization of nonprofit technology professionals. NTEN facilitates the exchange of knowledge and information within the nonprofit community. We connect our members to each other, provide professional development opportunities, educate our constituency on issues of technology use in nonprofits, and spearhead groundbreaking research, advocacy, and education on technology issues affecting our entire community. For additional information about NTEN, visit www.nten.org

Contact Information
Mary Dombrowski
Director of Operations
See3 Communications
(773) 784-7333
mary[at]see3[dot]net
www.see3.net
www.dogooder.tv

Holly Ross
Executive Director
NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network
(415) 397-9000
holly[at]nten[dot]org
www.nten.org

One of my most favorite conferences of the year is the Making Your Media Matter Conference. It is put on by American University’s Center for Social Media. This is the place to go if you are interested in the intersection of film, video, documentary, web video and social change. And you should be interested — this is the most important communications method available to nonprofit organizations. We are moderating the panel on short-shorts and new platforms.

Here’s the info on the conference. It is small and ALWAYS sells out — so reserve your spot.

The Center for Social Media is sponsoring the Making Your Media Matter conference on Feb. 7-8 at American University. The conference, geared towards established and aspiring filmmakers, non-profit communications leaders, funders and students, is a place where leading-edge practitioners learn and share cutting-edge practices for creating media that matters. The conference will feature panel discussions on the latest tools and trends in creating and distributing social issue media, including panels on games for social change, intercultural media, and short-shorts and new platforms; demos of cutting edge practices; networking opportunities as well as the chance to hear from our keynote speakers, filmmaker Byron Hurt and outreach expert Sonya Childress.
Click here to register and learn more.

SPACE IS LIMITED! REGISTER NOW TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A SPOT

Our favorite conference of the year is the NTC - the annual conference of NTEN - the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. This is the conference were more than one thousand nonprofit professionals gather to share and learn about how technology can advance the mission of nonprofit organizations.

I will be leading a session about online video — more to come on that — and we are once again a sponsor of the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards, sponsored by See3 and NTEN — more to come on that also.

I am very excited that David Pogue, my favorite New York Times technology columnist, is the keynote speaker. For those of you who read this blog you know that I am a big fan of David Pogue. You can see previous posts from me on his work here and here.

So, register for the NTC today and meet us March 19-21 in New Orleans!

Ever think about tag lines?

“The real thing.”

“It’s not just for breakfast anymore.”

“Destroying Tokyo since 1954.”
(From Godzilla, if you couldn’t guess.)

Our tag line at See3 is “Empowering Nonprofits by Powering Their Media”

Nonprofits have tag lines also. Some are descriptive, “The Jewish Service Corp” for AVODAH and Easter Seals “Disability Services”. Columbia University “In the City of New York.” Well, duh.

CFED says “Expanding Economic Opportunity.” It’s good to have a tag line that’s hard to argue with.

The Red Cross could have this tag line “One crisis after another” (Of course they would be talking about their own leadership.)

Consultant Nancy Schwartz is doing some research about nonprofit tag lines. Take the nonprofit tag line survey here and I promise to share with you the results once Nancy has it all put together.

As part of the new YouTube for Nonprofits, Google has integrated Google Checkout donation processing for organizations in the program. What this means is that if you are in the program, viewers will see a “Donate” button both on your channel page and when your video is playing in a standard page.

Here’s an example in the channel page:
24 Hours for Darfur Channel

Here’s an example on the standard video page:
24 Hours for Darfur standard view

If you are a 501(c)3 it’s a no-brainer to sign up. Why not?

What we don’t know yet is whether it will work. If a decent percentage of people who view a nonprofit video actually give, then we have a revolution on our hands. The viewers/donors might look similar to what we see on Facebook causes but we will wait until we have some real data before speculating further.

What we at See3 would like to propose to Google is an addition to their nonprofit program that could greatly enhance the value to organizations. We all know that a newsletter sign-up or advocacy ask is an easier ask than a donation. Imagine if next to the Donate button we had a “Join This Cause” button. And when a registered YouTube user clicked on it, the email address (and other info) of the user was transfered to the nonprofit. (Like with comments, the system could tell a non-registered user that they needed to register.)

Another approach — not as good for the nonprofits but maybe more acceptable to Google — would be more like the Facebook approach. Don’t give me their email, but connect me to them through the social network. I think there has to be something more than Subscribe — which they already have. There has to be a way to say, “I am a supporter, but this doesn’t mean I have to watch every video you produce all the time.” A one-click to Join would have the most benefit if it enabled the nonprofit to message the viewer on a regular basis beyond pushing out new videos.

Facebook has taught us that people will opt-in to support the cause far more than they will donate. You can see the evidence in the mostly small donation totals in the Causes application.

Maybe we can make this request to Google through out friends and partners at NTEN. What do you think Holly?