YouTube is one of the most popular and powerful platforms for sharing your organization's stories, achievements, and goals. It can help you reach a wider audience, engage your supporters, and showcase your impact. But how can you use YouTube effectively for community organizing? Here are some tips and best practices to help you create and share videos that inspire action.
Before you start filming, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to communicate, who you want to reach, and how you want them to respond. Think about your organization's mission, vision, and values, and how you can convey them through video. Consider your target audience, their interests, needs, and challenges, and how you can address them. Define your goals, objectives, and key messages, and how you can measure your success. Create a content calendar and a script to organize your ideas and ensure consistency.
Bring a human touch to the voice of your brand's content. Highlight some of the unique volunteers and their stories behind your community to give an authentic tone that others can relate to.
If you try to reach everybody, you reach nobody. Sean Cannel of Think Media would call this FOCUS. You don't have true FOCUS for your content until you have maximum clarity. Start with a few clarifying questions like: 1 - WHO is your target audience? And actually write it down. 2 - WHY should they watch the content that you're creating? And actually write that down too. 3 - WHAT is the aim of your content? Motivate? Educate? Entertain? Yeah, write that down too!
When creating video content to showcase your organization's impact, you can choose from various formats depending on your purpose and audience. Testimonials can help build trust, credibility, and empathy with viewers. Case studies demonstrate expertise, value, and effectiveness. Calls to action invite viewers to take a specific action such as donating or volunteering. Educational videos provide information, insights, or tips on relevant topics and help establish authority, raise awareness, and educate the audience.
This is where you really stand out! Youtube, especially today's market, is oversaturated. And yet, there's still so much opportunity to stand out and be different. #1 - Nobody is uniquely you, so stay away from anything that tempts you to be somebody or something else. #2 - After you've clarified your audience and niche, deliver in a format that best engages your audience and showcases your niche.
To ensure your videos reach and attract your audience, you need to optimize them for YouTube and its algorithm. Start by creating a catchy title that summarizes your main message and includes keywords that your audience might search for. Include a compelling description that explains what your video is about and why your audience should watch it. Don't forget to include a clear call to action and a link to your website or other relevant resources. Additionally, add relevant tags that describe your video content and help YouTube categorize it. Choose an eye-catching thumbnail that captures your video's essence, as well as captions and subtitles to make it accessible and understandable to different languages and abilities. Lastly, use cards and end screens to add interactive elements, such as links, polls, playlists, or other videos.
To increase your video views, engagement, and impact, you need to promote your videos across different channels and platforms. You can share them on your website, blog, newsletter, and social media accounts. Encourage followers to watch, like, comment, and share your videos with their networks. Embed them on landing pages, forms, or emails to enhance content or drive action. Collaborate with other organizations or influencers that share your values and audience by cross-promoting videos or creating joint projects. YouTube ads are also an option to reach a larger and more targeted audience with display, overlay, skippable, non-skippable, or bumper ads. With these tips and best practices in mind, you can create and share videos that showcase your organization's impact and inspire viewers to join your cause.
I would say DON'T post content on Youtube if you're not willing to put equal amount of time and effort into PROMOTING it as you did PRODUCING it. Most people hit upload and think their job is over. This also means more than just sharing the link on Facebook, but also engaging with it and comments that it attracts. All this of organic and $Free.99 by the way.