It was just a few months ago that we announced the winners of the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards on the YouTube homepage and live at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Atlanta. Now, we’re looking for one fine person to run next year’s contest.
Please share this opportunity among your networks!
————————————————– AWARDS PROGRAM MANAGER
See3 Communications is seeking an experienced Awards Program Manager to run the 5th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards, an online competition highlighting the best nonprofit videos of 2010.
The Awards Manager will handle a variety of responsibilities, from working closely with our team and our partners at YouTube to establish a strategy to planning, design, marketing, and logistics.
Responsibilities:
• Create awards program strategy and establish cross-sector partnerships with major media platforms
• Plan and execute awards from start to finish
• Manage (See3’s in-house) design, web and video teams to produce awards microsite on YouTube platform
• Handle all partner, judge, and entrant communication throughout awards
• Coordinate marketing of awards, including email program, online advertising, partner promotion, social media outreach, blogger outreach
• Tracking and monitoring the success of awards ( i.e. impressions, reach and influence), and providing reports for partners
Requirements:
• Bachelors degree in Public Relations, Marketing or Communications with at least 3 years social media, new media or online communications experience
• Experience with online contests, nonprofits, and/or film/media festivals
• Interactive, Web and Public Relations skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Organized, independent worker with strong attention to detail
Logistics:
• Position starts at part-time contract position, roughly 3 days per week from August 2010 to March 2011, long-term employment possibility
• Chicago location preferred, but will consider candidates nationally.
To Apply:
Please send a cover letter and resume by email to jobs (at) see3 (dot) net. Please include “Awards Program Manager” in the subject line.
For more information about See3, visit http://www.see3.net and http://www.youtube.com/nonprofitvideoawards
It used to be that everyone was asking us for a “viral” video. Now everyone is asking us how to measure video Return on Investment (ROI).
Video ROI is a topic we think a lot about at See3 and, unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer or one that fits every organization.
Generally, we think video should be measured in similar ways that you measure other content investments by connecting the ROI of video to broader organizational goals. Views are fine—just as website visitors are fine—but it only gets you a sense of the total amount of engagement.
Here are 5 questions to ask yourself when evaluating your organization’s video ROI.
1. Does Video Move the Needle?
Let’s say you make a video designed to influence a small group of elites (lawmakers, corporate decision makers, etc.). In that case, video views don’t seem so important at all.
Like in any communications effort, your key metrics should reflect your key objectives. A video that we created for the Maryland State Teachers Association only received a couple thousand views, but we consider it a big success.
Why? Because the goal of the video was to influence a debate about education funding and the state-level policymakers and journalists that matter in that debate all heard about the video, passed it on, and watched it. It worked.
2. Does Video Help Your SEO Strategy?
Many people forget about this fact, but SEO is a huge part of your video strategy.
YouTube is the second most popular search engine. That means more and more people are discovering content on your issue through YouTube—if you don’t have content that’s strategically titled, described, and tagged, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
Video can also jump you up in Google rankings.
In fact, a Forrester study found that “any given video stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page that Google has indexed”. Make sure to submit a Video Sitemap to Google and chart how it affects your rankings on target keywords.
3. Does Video Improve Your Conversion Rates?
Video is now used widely on websites, landing pages, and even as a hook in emails. Are you testing these conversion rates with and without video? When does it work and when not?
The answer isn’t the same for every organization, so make it a point to test how video affects conversion rates for each use.
4. Does Video Help Spread Your Message?
We often find that video helps in blog and social network outreach.
Facebook fans respond well to multimedia content and are accustomed to sharing videos among their own networks. Similarly, we’ve noticed that online campaigns with embeddable video gets picked up by bloggers more easily. Do you have a similar experience? If you’ve had trouble building relationships with bloggers, video may be the element that greases the wheel.
5. Does Video Engage Your Constituents?
YouTube and TubeMogul both offer analytics tools that help you assess viewership and engagement.
These tools let you see spikes and trends in views, where your video was embedded and viewed, and how long viewers tend to watch each of your videos. Take a look at this data and see if you can gather any insights about which video content works best, what is the optimal length, and how much coverage your video received beyond your own network.
Final Thoughts: We are moving toward a world where a website and a TV channel morph into the same thing. Determine your organization’s video ROI is a central question you have to answer in order to take full advantage of this new world.
Remember the touching Google Search Story about Parisian Love that aired during the Superbowl?
Well now you can create your own Search Story in less than 5 minutes. Just type in your search terms, select how you want the results to display (images, news, maps), choose your music, then wait briefly while the video renders. Preview, make edits, and upload directly to YouTube.
We recently announced the winners of the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards, but the contests don’t end there.
Our friends at the American Constitution Society have just announced a contest of their own. They’re looking for short videos that highlight the important role that courts play in shaping the laws that shape our lives.
The Quick Pitch:
This Contest encourages entrants to use their creativity to produce and film a digital video of four minutes or less that highlights the importance of our federal court system, the integrity and independence of judges, and the critical need to ensure a judicial nomination process that is fair, efficient and that helps cultivate a qualified judiciary operating at its full potential.
What They’re Looking For:
* Effectiveness at conveying message;
* Originality;
* Relevance;
* Incorporation of the Constitution and constitutional interpretation;
* Consistency with themes in Keeping Faith with the Constitution and the ACS Mission Statement;
* Production technique;
* Memorability.
The winner takes home $1,500 and a free registration to the 2010 ACS National Convention in Washington DC, where the winning video will be screened.
The deadline is May 15, 2010, so get your camera out and act fast! If you enter, be sure to let us know so we can watch.
The great people at Working Films and The Fledgling Fund just announced IMPACT, a new series of videos that discuss how film campaigns can ignite social change. They ask the question we always grapple with: How do social issue documentary films do more than just raise awareness?
In the video, The Fledgling Fund Founder Diana Barrett and Executive Director Shelia Leddy discuss the impact of Born into Brothels and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You’ll get a close look at how these films supported the social change goals of their partner organizations and how they were tied to urgent actions. Diana and Sheila also lead you through their foundation’s transformation into one of the leaders in the field of supporting creative media and audience engagement.
A good nonprofit video gives a sneak peak into an organization. It celebrates accomplishments. It digs deep into a global issue. But that’s not enough. It has to move viewers and give them the tools to take action.
What do you want your viewer to do? Share? Donate? Read more? Sign a petition? Volunteer?
Facebook Video clearly doesn’t have the flexibility of YouTube, but in the past couple months they’ve added a small video feature that’s worth mentioning.
If you upload a video to your Facebook fan page, a “Become a Fan” overlay button will automatically appear upon mouse over.
It’s a simple call-to-action that lets your viewer stay more connected in the long-term. If you want to increase your Facebook fans, you should be driving potential supporters to one of your Facebook videos so they can engage with your media and easily become a fan of your organization.
Last year, when we uploaded our Guide to Online Video to YouTube, the quality looked like this:
And this:
We recently tried an experiment and re-uploaded the same exact videos to YouTube. We didn’t re-edit them or tweak the compression. We didn’t change a thing.
What a difference a year makes. Look at how crisp and clear the video is:
When we embedded these videos on our site last year, we decided to use Vimeo based on its superior quality. But with YouTube’s quality improvements and playlist functionality, we’ve made the switch to YouTube.
