I recently spent some time in with friends in Chicago attending SOBCon. During he last day of the trip, I went for a very long walk along Millenium Park.

On my way back to the hotel, I bumped into four college-aged women giving out free hugs. After I got my free hug (which was very nice) I decided to ask them a few questions.

They were inspired by the “Free Hugs” YouTube video and decided to start their own free hug campaign. What was interesting they had no agenda other than to share the pure and simple experience of giving.

After we said our goodbyes, I wondered just how many undetectable, unmeasurable acts take place on sidewalks around the world – all originating from a single inspired video.

You’ve spent critical resources (staff time and money) creating videos for what you hope will be a lively YouTube channel. You’ve uploaded a healthy number of engaging videos, and have even customized your YouTube theme. But there’s a problem.

After a few months, you still only have a couple of subscribers and not many views.

Check your titles and tags

One of the most common causes of low view numbers (besides boring content) is an incorrect use of titles and tags. You’ve busy (just like we all are) and quickly enter titles and tags (or not) as you upload. But there is a difference between “Billy Shore Speaking At Our Annual Conference” and “Can We End Childhood Hunger By 2015? Billy Shore Of Share Our Strength”.

Likes and Retweets

In an age of Facebook likes and tweets, titles are everything (FYI, we have left the age of sharing on Facebook). Titles are the the very heart of retweets, “likes” and click-thoughs. Before Facebook and Twitter, we shared everything by email. And more often than not, our friends actually read the body of the email – or at least the subheadings.

Not so much on Facebook and Twitter. Between streams of status updates and noise that’s becoming more and more like static, we have trained our focus on titles.

Homework: Go through your YouTube vidoes and edit the titles with these two tips in mind:

1. Try using questions for titles. Questions psychologically beg for an answer. If we know the answer, we will click. If if we don’t know the answer, we will click.
2. Bullet-point your titles. Watch your video and see if you can bullet point the content in the title. For example, a video of a nurse talking about dietary tips for cancer patients might contain a total of 5 dietary tips. The bullet-point title would be “5 dietary tips for early stage cancer patients”.

Google Is Still In The Royal Flush

Facebook has stollen the crown (should Mark get a @foursquare badge?), but Google is still in the royal family. If you’re like me, when you go to YouTube.com (directly, without clicking a link someone shared), it’s because you’re searching for something. Your constituants are doing the same.

When you upload your videos, think about how you would search for this video if you wanted to find it. Remember that people that don’t know about your organization yet won’t be searching for your events, jargon or acronyms (but do use these in your tags).

Last point here. Create a simple list of guidelines for staff on how to use titles and tags. Title it “5 ways to make your boss happy”. And send it out by email.

Questions? Comments? Hate mail?

YouTube rolled out an entirely new design to video pages – aimed at increasing engagement. Igor Kofman and Shiva Rajaraman of YouTube wrote that the design gets back to the “reason why you came to YouTube in the first place — the video — and all the ways you engage with content and creators.”

YouTubes new redesign – an overview

Below are 6 screen shots followed by a video tour of the new design.

The Uploader – It’s now easier to subscribe to a user and see all the videos. In the example below, the user (thebionicle43) has uploaded 16 videos. Clicking on the double-down arrow expands a view of these videos.

Video Size – You can now make a video wider or expand to full screen view.

Thumbs Up Or Down – Following Facebooks “like” example, YouTube has trashed it’s 5-star rating system in exchange for a simple “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down” rating. This will be much easier for you to see which videos people prefer, and who prefers them!

Favorites and Playlists – YouTube has simplified the process of marking a video as a favorite or adding it to a playlist. A single “Save To” button enables either choice.

Sharing – Posting on Twitter and Facebook is now much easier for viewers. This means that it’s even more important for nonprofits to develop a presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Underbar - The sidebar vloggers used to point to on the right-hand side? Now it’s collapsed under the video. Again, the intention here is to make the video page uncluttered.

A quick tour:

Also check out the overview of these changes from YouTube.

If you publish a lot of YouTube videos on specific topics, this post will be very useful.

With annotated links, you can edit your videos and add text links that will link to:

• Other videos on YouTube
• Playlists on Youtube
• YouTube Channels
• Searches on YouTube
• Groups on YouTube
• Any external link (only available to folks participating in YouTube’s non-profit program)

On Wednesday, I attended a webinar by See3 Communications called “YouTube for non-profits” – and I’m mighty glad I did! Unlike many free webinars that give attendees broad-brush concepts with very little take away, See3 left the attendees with YouTube “HowTos” that can be immediately applied.

The biggest light bulb for me was how linkable annotations can be used to create a more powerful user experience on YouTube. In Michael Hoffman’s words, this feature is a “game changer” for nonprofits. I’ve written a couple of posts on the linkable annotation feature in Youtube before, but after listening to Michael, I finally understand exactly why it’s a “game changer”.

Choose a Different Ending

The video below uses linkable annotations to create a highly interactive “video game” where viewers decide the storyline:

Imagine creating a video that viewers are eager to share with their friends (“John! You’ve got to see this cool video!”). More sharing, means more visibility. More visibility means more supporters. You get the idea…

How to get the most out of YouTube

The “YouTube for non-profits” presentation covers everything your non-profit needs to know in order to get the most out of YouTube. Why YouTube matters, getting started, creating and customizing your profile, how to shoot a video and more.

You can watch “YouTube for non-profits” presentation for free on the See3 website. You also might find value in my video tutorial on “How to customize your Youtube theme“.

Enjoy and have great weekend!

Your organization has included Youtube content as part of your social media marketing plan. You’ve signed up for the Youtube non-profit program so that you can use external links to allow fans to make donations, sign up as volunteers, or sign a petition (Regular users can only link to other Youtube videos).

I wrote about the “Call To Action” layover feature back in July, but it now appears that Youtube has amped up the feature to include:

1. Prettier Links

2. Whenever and wherever you want them to appear

3. Linked images within the video

So what does this mean for your non-profit? It means more clicks, as long as you use them creatively and with a sense of adventure. Funny how it always comes back to you, huh.

Kudos go to Michael Hoffman who has been working with Steve Grove and Ramya Ragahvan—who runs the YouTube Nonprofit Program—on improving their features for non-profits.

]]> http://www.johnhaydon.com/2009/09/youtubes-call-action-feature-nonprofits/feed/ 11 http://www.johnhaydon.com/2009/08/customize-youtube-channel-design-video-tutorial/ http://www.johnhaydon.com/2009/08/customize-youtube-channel-design-video-tutorial/#comments Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:49:10 +0000 John Haydon http://www.johnhaydon.com/?p=8700

Note: A video tutorial is at the end of this post.

Back in June, Youtube rolled out their new channel design, which I upgraded late one night in July but haven’t had time to take a closer look at what the upgrade was about.

I finally had time to dig into options this past week, and thought it might be useful to screencast my upgrade.

What’s new with the Youtube channel design

According to Youtube, users get the following enhancements:

1. In-channel editing, allowing you to see the results of your design changes on your channel as you edit.
2. Channel visitors can browse through and watch multiple videos without leaving the channel.
3. Customize and re-arrange how your videos (uploads, playlists, and favorites) are displayed on your channel.

This video covers:

1. Upgrading to the new channel design (if you haven’t already)
2. Selecting your channel settings
3. Selecting a Youtube Theme, creating your own theme and uploading a background image.
4. Selecting which modules to show or hide.
5. Selecting your “featured” content.

Also see:

How non-profits can use Youtube’s Call-To-Action feature

YouTube: A Step-by-Step Guide For Nonprofits

You’ve no doubt seen the Youtube video “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” that received over 12 million views in only 12 days. This could actually be a Youtube record for the highest number of views in the shortest time.

But what caused this to go viral?

Let’s watch and take notes first

Seven organic attributes that caused this video to go viral (just my opinion):

While there’s no way that you can plan a mega viral hit like the “JK Wedding Entrance Dance”, let’s see if we can learn anything that might help.

1. Surprise. You expect to see yet another characterless video of a wedding you don’t care about. Instead, you get the opposite.
   
2. Common ground. Who has not been even remotely involved in a wedding?
3. Great music. I’m not a huge Chris Brown fan, but I have to admit, “Forever” does make me want to dance.
4. Preparation. Although the wedding party only rehearsed once, they planned out the choreography beforehand.
5. Joy is contagious. Everyone in the video is filled with joy – both the wedding party and the guests. And who doesn’t want a smile on their face?
6. Magic or Mystic? Whether you’re religious or not, videos like this have an unexplainable quality to them.
7. Snowballs roll downhill. Content launched the video onto the “most viewed” page, causing over 64,000 Youtube users to give it their highest rating, which created more exposure, which eventually had sites like The Wall Street Journal and Mashable covering the phenomena, which caused the mass media, like The Today Show to jump on board.

What do you think?

YouTube added a feature that could enable non-profits to easily raise money or call actions using video. The Call-To-Action Overlay creates a semi-transparent pop-up at the bottom of a Youtube video screen with a hyperlink to any external website. You could link to a donation page, your non-profit’s blog, a petition, or even a volunteer sign-up page.

This new feature will increase the likelihood of people taking action from your video. For example, a video showing children playing in a newly constructed schoolyard in Mozambique could have a link where viewers can take part in building more schools.

These overlays can also be set to appear at a specific moment in the video. For example, when a voiceover asks the viewer to help build more schools for children.

This makes links sexier

• The link is right in front of the user – not in their peripheral vision
• The Call-To-Action popup can appear when the viewer asked to take action
• The user’s eyes will be drawn to the sudden appearance of the overlay

The web is an interactive medium, where folks feel the need to click links in order to glean the most utility and value. The Call-To-Action overlay should work much better than just putting a link in the video summary or asking folks to manually type another URL in the browser.

And there’s already proof that it works! charity:water raised $10,000 in 24 hours during a testing phase of the Call-To-Action Overlay.

Leverage your Steven Spielbergs

Are some of your raving fans good at making videos? Then check out the post written by Amy RS Ward titled “YouTube calls for video volunteers to help nonprofits”. This new volunteers program, in concert with the Call-To-Action Overlay technology described above, will engage your existing “fundraisers” in a very powerful ways!

Tip: CharityHowTo now has a comprehensive Youtube tutorial for non-profits – for only $19.99. Totally worth the money

How would you use the Call To Action overlay?