Youtube

There is bound to be overlap in the articles but if we could divide up the information under these two headings regardless I think it would be helpful in the end for our presentation and write up.
 * Youtube Case Studies**

ROUND 1) (Who has had success with youtube, why should they use this site?)


 * __ YOUTUBE - Nonprofit Program __**

__ What is the YouTube Nonprofit Program? __ The YouTube Nonprofit program can benefit an NPO that has a compelling story to tell, wants to connect with supporters, volunteers and donors, but does not have the funds to launch expensive outreach campaigns. Videos are one of the most powerful mediums for communicating to a public as they can tell powerful and emotional stories that move supporters to take action ( [] ). This website is the perfect social media platform to showcase your cause through video. Video is a powerful way to show your organization’s impact and needs. With a designated ‘Nonprofit’ channel on YouTube, you can deliver your messages to the world’s largest online video community ( [] ). People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. According to the YouTube website, every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to the site. In terms of demographics, the user base is broad in age range from 18-55 year-olds both male and female. 51% of users go to YouTube weekly or more, 52% of 18-34 year-olds share video often with friends and colleagues ( [] ). Benefits of using a ‘Nonprofit’ channel include premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity, listing on the Nonprofit channels and Nonprofit videos pages, and the ability to embed a “Call to Action” overlay on videos to drive a campaign. This means that viewers can click a link while watching the video which will take them to a specified webpage that allows them to make a donation, sign up for mailing lists, and interact with other members in the community. The website also has video embedding, meaning users can insert a YouTube video into their Facebook, blogs or other websites ( [] ). The “Call to Action” overlay was first tested in 2009 by placing a video on their homepage supporting charity:water. The video featured an overlay encouraging YouTube users to donate money to the cause. In just one day, charity:water received $10,000 from YouTube users alone. Although the video was featured on the websites homepage, it still shows success. The easier you can make it for people to donate money, the more likely they will be to do so ( [] ). YouTube can have many uses for an NPO. Some but not all include for fundraising, promoting awareness, project updates, campaigns, telling stories, event videos and speeches. What is also a unique feature of YouTube is its ability to allow users to reply to videos they watch either through written messages, or by submitting a video reply. This feature in turn can help to create a dialogue between the organization and the public, creating a community. The videos can be used with either a broadcast paradigm, meaning the communication is one-way, from the organization to the public, or it can be used with a dialogical paradigm, meaning two-way communication between the organization and the public. The latter will involve much more time and commitment by the organization in order to keep the dialogue going (Greenberg & MacAulay, 2009). The following case studies will give examples of different ways in which NPO’s have used YouTube’s nonprofit channel to their benefit.


 * __ CASE STUDIES __**

__Free the Children__ - [|www.youtube.com/freethechildrenintl] Free the Children is an organization that through leadership training at home, and community development projects abroad, empowers youth everywhere to make a difference. It is the world’s largest network of children helping children through education. Free the Children is an organization that has benefited from the new YouTube Nonprofit channel. The organization became a YouTube member in February of 2009 and since then have had over 25,000 channel views and have over 1,000 subscribers. Since joining they have increased their use of video to do both **fundraising** and **promote awareness**. Their YouTube channel hosts over 60 videos including **project updates, campaigns, how-to videos, event videos and speeches**. Collectively their videos have hundreds of thousands of views. One of their most successful videos was Jason Mraz’s message for their Vow of Silence program in which youth don’t speak, text, Tweet, or Facebook for 24 hours to raise money for those silenced by poverty. Through use of **YouTube Insight**, an analytics tool available to all YouTube users, Free the Children was able to determine where exactly their video views were coming from, and could then target these sources in their future campaigns. According to Alex Apostol, Digital Director at Free the Children, they are excited about using the free tools offered by the YouTube Nonprofit Program. The **call-to-action overlay** is a tangible way to increase the impact of their videos on **donations and campaign sign-ups**. They believe that video is an incredible way to inspire young people. Video can take massive, complex social issues and in a matter of seconds **create an emotional connection, tell a powerful story and even inspire action** (Apostol). The organization has been very successful in using YouTube’s Nonprofit program. They are currently the #1 Most Subscribed Canadian nonprofit organization on the site and have over 200,000 views of their videos combined. Free the Children uses a more broadcast paradigm in their use of YouTube as a social media. Although they encourage viewers to post comments and video responses, they are more looking to showcase their events and tell their powerful stories to promote awareness of their cause (through video). This works for them because they also have a website, Twitter account and Facebook page in which they are able to create dialogue between themselves and the public.

__Canadian Cancer Society__ - [] The Cancer Society is a national community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is the eradication of cancer and the enhancement of the quality of life of people living with cancer. Since they launched their YouTube channel in July 2009, the Canadian Cancer Society has been using video to both **rally Canadians to join the fight against cancer and to communicate the important progress they are making**. Many of their successes with YouTube revolve around their ability to have real Canadians with real cancer experiences **share their stories**. Mike Kirkpatrick, Director of Marketing at the Canadian Cancer Society said, “**Storytelling is a very powerful tool for inspiring social change and communicating the need for that change. Video offers the perfect vehicle to tell stories. YouTube makes this even easier and more accessible allowing our supporters to be part of and add to the ongoing story**.” NPO’s videos need to have a well-crafted message in order to reach their targeted audiences. Each uploaded video should have a distinct message targeted towards different publics. The Canadian Cancer Society has done this by creating videos ranging from advertisements featuring survival stories, included pop culture icons and posted news segments. This variety helps to reach the goal of marketing and communicating different messages to distinct demographic groups ( [] ). This is important as today there are so many different groups and societies that it is hard to have one message than can speak to them all. This in turn is bringing people together from all walks of life because they all have a common interest in fighting cancer for their own personal reasons. The videos help to provide support to those dealing with the disease or who want to learn more about prevention (Greenberg & MacAulay, 2009). They recently released a short film that features eight Canadians with real cancer stories voice what they would say to cancer. They did not script the spots because they wanted raw, honest emotion. The internet was the perfect venue for showcasing the video and the others from the campaign in a way that was immediate, easy to distribute and easy to measure. As a result of their YouTube channel, along with their other use of social media, The Canadian Cancer Society has brought much attention to their cause, and has created a strong network of supporters and donators. The currently have 82 subscribers and over 5,000 channel views. The channel also states their website and Twitter name for viewers who wish to stay connected through other means of social media.

__United Way Toronto__ - [] United Way Toronto is a charity working to advance the common good and create opportunities for a better life for everyone in the city. Working in partnership with others, they mobilize people and resources to address the root causes of social problems and to change community conditions for the better. They also support agencies that provide services to strengthen individuals, families and communities. United Way Toronto has been a member of YouTube since March 2008 and has used the video website in a number of ways. One way is to **thank donors for showing their support** for United Way projects, through **showcasing their grassroots events.** First they give clips of people participating in one of their many campaigns; they talk to the volunteers and find out why they chose to participate and what they got out of the experience. Then they have a thank-you message at the end, thanking those in the video as well as all participants in their showcased campaign. They have done this through **embedding a thank-you video on their site** and have made it an important part of the donation sequence. These videos have received thousands of views. These videos show the compassion and unity that is created through their campaigns and that United Way is more than a commensurable. This is needed if the organization wants to earn the publics trust and be able to start dialogue and community interactions with them. These relationships that they are building through their campaign videos are crucial to building their volunteer, financial and advocacy capital (Greenberg & MacAulay, 2009). Michael Fuhrmann, Director of New Media at United Way Toronto has said that **video allows people to learn about their cause** and allows them to tell people how their support makes a difference in their community. They want it to **engage people and have them tell their story to them through the YouTube Direct function that allows people to submit videos to their page**. Fuhrmann believes that organizations need to **stop worrying about the quality and professionalism of their video** collections, and **focus more on the content**. Just telling your organizations story can make a difference. Videos with high production value and high cost take months to create. But this new breed of online videos are short, never more than five minutes in length, mostly filmed on inexpensive cameras and are making just as big of an impact as those documentaries made in Hollywood ( [] ).

__ The Veterans of Foreign Wars “Our Heroes Next Door” __ [] The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States set out to create a video campaign aimed at identifying potential donors in their 20’s and 30’s. The organization was concerned that it was relying too heavily on older donors and wanted to branch out. To reach their target group, the VFW has produced two videos that have been posted on YouTube. One is a slideshow-style spot called “Our Heroes Next Door.” It features a series of heroic images of soldiers set to somber, military-style music. The images were combined with written messages, such as “They are our brothers and sisters,” and “Honor them by flying your flag.” The video was a success and at one point was number 17 on the most-watched video list of the entire website. The video attracted an audience, in part, because the VFW was able to get bloggers sympathetic to its cause to link it to their own blogs, making it somewhat viral. The organization did not ask for donations as part of the video, but it was able to collect nearly 3,000 e-mail addresses, many of which were from the 20-30 year-old range. Their database grew an extra couple thousand people that the VFW might not have reached otherwise. These e-mail addresses were eventually used for future fund-raising campaigns. Any single e-mail from the 20-30 year-old demographic is incredibly helpful to have. In order to create a compelling, powerful online video, consider interviewing people who are affected by the work your organization does and record actions you are taking to solve problems in your community. These tactics prove to be much more successful than creating a piece you think is hip or one that features a celebrity. The other thing to keep in mind is to keep videos short. If you have previously created a longer video, you may want to consider chopping it up. Your organization can also use online videos to respond to current events, to explain your position on a current issue, or to bring attention to an issue that should be, but isn’t in the news ( [] ).

__ How can Shepherds of Good Hope use YouTube? __ [] YouTube is already being used by Shepherds of Good Hope, but in order to be able to fully utilize the social media platform, the organization needs to make some changes. The organization already has a YouTube channel, but a Nonprofit channel will give them more website tools to choose from. They have one great video which briefly takes a look at the SOGH facilities and services, and tells the stories of some of their past clients. Although the content of the video is effective in showcasing the organization and their cause, it has not gotten much play on the YouTube website. This is for a few different reasons. First the length needs to be cut down either by cutting material completely, or by splitting the content into two different videos. SOGH can use YouTube to showcase their various events, showcase real people that use their facilities and programs and tell their stories. Secondly if other social media platforms were used, such as Twitter, Facebook, or even toe SOGH website, a link could be posted encouraging online users to view the video. Also encouraging the public to respond to the videos either through text or through their own videos will help to create discussion about the issues surrounding homelessness. The key is creating a community through discussion of the video content and using a two-way dialogical paradigm to help generate new content and information. It is also a fact that these social media technologies do not perform alone and require much cultural and organizational commitment as dialogue is very time consuming.

ROUND 2) (How others have used it to have success, what works?)

