Tagged under: Using Online Video to Benefit Your Nonprofit
By Jennifer De Guelle
AustinMSW.com
Jennifer De Guelle is a Consultant at Social Media-Charity Matters & AustinMSW.com, helping Non-profits build social media/web 2.0 marketing strategies using e-tools & best practices.
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Submitted 07/07/09 to http://austinmsw.wordpress.com
According to the survey cited in the article “New Genre: Online Video Grows in Popularity” from MediaPost.com, video shot by consumers pulls in 43% of regular online video users. Before the emergence of online video viewing as an alternative to traditional TV veiwership, only companies with marketing budgets substantial enough to hire ad agencies to professionally shoot and promote static and often passive promos with limited cross-channel syndication were able to enage with potential customers.
The growing popularity in online video viewing at sites like YouTube and Vimeo now allows even amateur film makers to produce content that can represent their organization or personal brand in a unique, creative, informative and even humorous way. What better way to introduce your nonprofit brand as an agent for creating social good than to upload your Cause Related Marketing (CRM) Campaign to YouTube. Develop a following based on offering information of value presented in a way that has comedic or dramatic impact and your consumers will be your best marketers as they watch and pass it on. Make sure that your profile further brands your organization/cause and give your viewers an instant way to connect with you as they visit your site or blog.
Which brings me to the next step, syndicate your video across every channel you have access to! As the popularity of social media sites and social marketing has grown, the power of online video viewing has grown. This is also true for online services dedicated to syndication: With Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, FriendFeed, Delicious, and traditional RSS Feeds, essentially any Social Media platform is eaily harnessed as a syndication ground-swell for your videos and your organization’s overall cause.
Thankfully, gone are the days of being forced to market offline or in rigid Web 1.0 modalities. The social media-social networking revolution brokers consumer driven in-roads and has a transformative efffect over the power individuals, small to medium sized organizations and even large nonprofits with limited marketing resources have to connect and develop new relationships with consumers that are actively seeking their organizations products and services.
I am posting a great example of an online video made by Bazaarvoice, an Austin-based company which offers user-generated review platforms, SEO, syndication and other B2B expertise. I highlighted this video as an example of a company that understands word of mouth marketing and how to showcase their products and services by letting creativity and humor explain their brand.
Video courtesy of Bazaarvoice and www.youtube.com
“This is a music video produced for the Bazaarvoice 2008 Social Commerce Summit, featuring most of the Bazaarvoice executive team. Just to clarify, a local band did the vocals, we modified the lyrics…”
Read more about growing trends towards online viewership and consider applying it towards growing your online audience.
Thank you to Magid Advisors, for releasing the study and to the video site Metacafe, to Bazaarvoice for the example video and finally to Media Daily News for reporting on the results of the study in the following article, “New Genre: Online Video Grows in Popularity”.
Read the article this post was inspired by at MediaPost.com
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I think that with the emergence of not only online video but also social media as a whole, non-profits will benefit. This just provides other means and outlets for non-profits to spread their message and get more support. I definitely think this can and will be used to non-profit organizations’ advantage.