YouTube changes the rules of video production

A lot of "net savvy" nonprofits are posting videos at YouTube. Not a bad idea, but you really want to get the video right in the first place.

There's a great post at Endless Plain that looks at two nonprofit YouTube videos: Nonprofit Video Comparison. You really need to see this.

One is polished, pretty, and professional. It clearly plays close to the brand guidelines. It has a smooth-sounding professional narrator, and stunning photography.

The other is rough, goofy, and frankly home-made looking.

Care to guess which one is so dull you almost can't force yourself to sit through it? And which one is engaging, human, and charming? (Want to guess also which one cost more to produce?)

The view counts at YouTube tell the story.

The old days are over. If you want to engage people on the web, it's much more important to be real than to be polished.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, YouTube, nptech

Comments

[Bryan]

Hi Jeff. Quick YouTube question for you from the other side of the pond. Have you heard of any non-profits over there testing, or intending to test, the interactive possibilities introduced by the new YouTube Annotations feature?

Bryan

[Michael Hoffman]

There is certainly a point to be made that production values can be compromised if the story or characters can carry the video and that YouTube and other online outlets can support lower quality videos. (The best examples are the huge numbers we saw from cell phone videos -- Saddam Hussein, taser guy, Michael Richards, etc.)

But I think this kind of post and discussion misses the real point. Who cares about views? Is your goal as an organization to get views from random people on YouTube? Or is your goal to influence a certain set of people, or to move people to specific action?

I think an argument can be made that wide distribution is important for long-term cultural change. But most organizations are looking for specific results -- sign-ups, donations, etc. It is very hard to convert people from seeing a YouTube video to getting them to your site to do something. And so the bottom line, I think, is the bottom line -- did the video achieve the goals.

[Nancy Schwartz]

Interesting take, Jeff. But I wonder how long "homemade" production values will remain interesting, or homemade. They grab viewers now because they're so different from the norm (tv commercials). But will that engagement stick over time, as homemade becomes old stuff (corporate videos are stealing the style) and tired.

Maybe what we'll be seeing are smarter videos -- less perfect than many commercials, less folksy than many of the homemade variety, more focused on stories and impact!

Best,
Nancy