Tag Archives: video

Creating viral video

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I’m at NCVO’s Multimedia Explained event today and this morning we had a really interesting session with Julie Dodd from Public Zone looking about how organisations can create viral videos.

Julie’s 5 top tips for creating viral videos:

  • Keep them short (1-2 minutes maximum). 

One of the other workshops from the day said that when a video gets to around 52 seconds most people switch off or fast forward to the end to see what happens, so make sure that by the time yours hits 52 seconds something interesting has happened.

  • Make sure it’s well edited

This doesn’t mean that it needs to be high quality but it does need to be edited well.  Free tools are available such as Windows Movie Maker on PCs, iMovie on Macs and others at
http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=256
.

  • Is it surprising or exciting? 

If not, then are people really going to want to look at it and share it?

  • Make it shareable   

Host your video on a site like You Tube, Facebook or Vimeo so that’s it easy for people to link to it, embed in their own sites/blogs and share with friends.

  • Part of a wider strategy 

Your video won’t go viral if you haven’t thought through what you’re going to do with it after it’s made.  Think through the marketing strategy as a whole before you even get to the stage of making your video.

Good luck!

Collaborative working conference – web 2.0 session

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[apologies for this being posted a bit later than it should have been]

Into the first workshop … Michelle McMahon from Ammado is asking us all about if and how we are using web 2.0.  The experiences vary from users who are passionate to users who are sceptical to people who don’t know yet if it’s for them … my only thought at the moment is that I hope that I’m not annoying anyone with my continuous tapping :-)

There’s an interesting range of what people what to get out of this session; there is talk of using web 2.0 to interact with members, to communicate internally and also to get a better general understanding of what all of these tools are and how they can be used.

So, what is web 2.0?  Web 2.0 is participatory, it is about people creating and sharing online.  At the start of the internet it was talked of as the information age, now it should be thought of as the participatory age.

An interesting thought to start the session, how do people communicate with a ketchup bottle online?

Michelle’s favourite examples of web 2.0 sites at the moment are
http://wetellstories.co.uk
, a Penguin site which used popular authors to create new stories online, with input from the public.  The site had the effect of raising the profile of both Penguin and the authors involved.  The second highlighted site was for the Obama ’08 campaign
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog/
, rallying support of people online – the site featured an Obama ringtone .. I’m interested to hear what that sounded like. 
http://worldwithoutoil.org
is a site which simulated what might happen during a global oil crisis.  For once at a conference the internet is working and Michelle is showing some footage from You Tube from the World Without Oil site.

Some of the other examples of web 2.0 in action included …

  • Organisations such as the NSPCC using fan pages on Facebook to attract supporters 
  • Ebay, working with Mission Fish to administer donations from items sold on Ebay
  • Community pages on the Ammado site for various causes, promoting calls to action through widgets which can be shared on other social networking spaces
  • The Born in September twitter campaign, raising money for Charity Water by targeting people who were born in september
  • powergramo - allowing you to create podcasts using skype
  • Kiva - a site which uses donations to fund micro loans around the world

Some of the delegates had their own experiences of web 2.0, which included …

  • Using a blog to answer questions that you’re constantly asked so that you don’t waste time repeating yourself – you can also link to other sources of useful information
  • Blogging about work which can attract local newspapers in search of a story
  • Smaller charities using free blogs (like wordpress.com or typepad) instead of a website, there is some of the basic functionality of websites

As with all workshops in every conference ever we started to run over time and my stomach was becoming quite vocal as lunch approached.  Michelle looked briefly at future trends affecting web 2.0, such as the increasing visibility of charity – company online relationships.

Off to lunch …

Finding your voice with video

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Tim Davies wrote an interesting piece recently about his experience of using video as a tool to consult with young people. 

Tim and his colleagues filmed interviews with teenagers at a youth festival as a way to find out what they thought about the County Council using social networking sites for youth participation.   Cheap portable cameras were used for quick but effective results.

One of the questions asked was ”What three words do you think of when I say Bebo?”  Tim fed their responses in to wordle.net to produce this word/tag cloud.  I love the simplicity of this image – you can understand instantly what their views are.

youth participation wordle

The use of video for consultation and campaigning is becoming increasingly popular within the sector.  The video cameras that Tim used for his consultation cost under £30, meaning that they are within the reach of most organisations.

You only have to think back to last year of the videos emerging from Burma of the monks’ protests to know how powerful it is to see something happening, not just read about it.  People risked their lives to film what was happening there and the images spread quickly over the net.

Witness is an organisation devoted to using video and online technologies to “open the eyes of the world to human rights violations”.

Social reporter David Wilcox always has his camera to hand when he’s out and about and films interviews with the people he meets to share via his blog.

BBC’s Children in Need campaign also encourages people to upload videos of their fundraising activities.

How do you get started with video?

Video is not just for big charities; free and easy to use web based resources make it a possibility for all sizes and types of organisations.

YouTube is a popular way for organisations to share their videos.  Many of the larger charities such as Oxfam and Amnesty have dedicated “channels” within YouTube, featuring reports on issues and campaigns and exclusive clips from celebrity supporters.

Flickr is another site which allows the storage and sharing of images and videos.  Although the free account has a size limit of 100 MB per month, the pro version offers unlimited space and has recently become available to charities as part of the CTX software donation scheme.

how to use new media

You can find out more about all sorts of new media tools in this guide from the ICT Hub and Media Trust.

 

 

The guide features 7 tips for getting started with video:

  1. Get your phone out and if it has a video camera point it at your colleague and ask them to say what your organisation is and to tell a story about why it’s important.  Keep it short.
  2. Go to YouTube and create an account.
  3. Upload the film.
  4. If you have a video camera, try and shoot something a little longer or more complicated.  Use free software like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to edit the film.
  5. Contact your local media studies teacher to see if any young people want to become part of your film making community.
  6. Make a clear call to action to view and submit videos on your own website to ensure your video contributors are on the right track.
  7. Think of tags you want everyone to use on their films.  Publicise the new film making community.

VoiceThread.com

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I’ve just seen this post from Laura Whitehead, (who in turn was re posting form Beth Kanter) on Voice Thread.

Laura’s blog –
http://laura.popokatea.co.uk/2007/07/07/voicethread-a-great-new-tool-for-pictures-and-voices/

Beth’s blog –
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/07/sharing-my-lear.html

Voice Thread allows you to upload a pictures (or series of pictures) and add an audio commentary.  It also allows people to leave comments as either text or audio commentary.  With my Hub conferences in mind, there is great potential to upload the dreaded PowerPoint slides (saved as JPEGs) and ask the workshop leaders to expand on the info with audio snippets.  Having had a look at the website, it seems like quite a simple process to create and share a video thread, all you need is a microphone.  I’ve been reading a bit about screencasting, essentially the same sort of thing but with moving images and a commentary, and this looks like an easy way in.

Laura had some good ideas for ways of VCOs using Voice Thread: 

  • make a tutorial for their volunteers;
  • find a creative way to let others know the work of their organisation, but not wanting to keep up with the maintenance of a blog;
  • provide something real and live for potential funders and supporters to show the work they do,
  • and also a group of young people wanting to collate their knowledge and share a project they’ve been working on together.

On a slight tangent, I’m very much enjoying looking out of the window to the big blue sky above, hopefully it will stay there for my first proper match in the London charity netball league later this afternoon.  Fingers crossed.