One of the reasons that social media marketing is so attractive is the notion that it’s “free” to use these tools to create and share your message — there’s no charge to participate via Twitter, upload content on YouTube or create a Facebook fan page. But of course that’s not entirely true. The time costs are significant. Organizations that want to have some really cool online content often have to spend good money to hire professionals to develop and create that content.
While some brands have the budget available to hire a production company to create slick, creative video, most nonprofit organizations don’t have those resources. Even if they do have a decent video camera on hand, they may not have staff members with enough time to sit and brainstorm creative ways to tell the organization’s story via video and then plan, shoot, edit and upload it.
Enter YouTube’s video volunteers, which launched a few weeks ago. It’s a way for nonprofits to crowdsource the development and production of video by tapping into the creative juices of YouTube’s many users. The program is in conjunction with Google’s All for Good initiative that aims to be a broader online volunteer matching service.
I’ll let the vlogbrothers give you particulars:
Some of the organizations requesting help on the video volunteers page right now include a military family support group, a environmental sustainability partnership and an organization that combats global poverty. They are looking for videos to use to promote their organization, support fundraising efforts and serve as a call to action for volunteers.
It’s early in the project, so it’s hard to tell if this approach will be successful or if the organizations will end up with either no takers or submitted videos that don’t meet their needs or quality standards. But I think it’s an interesting approach in matching up creative talent with organizations who need it, and the nonprofits really have nothing to lose by putting a request out there and seeing what the video volunteers come up with. I also see it as an opportunity for students or professionals who are out of work to get some experience working with a client and developing content that not only helps the organization but also can become a part of their professional portfolio.
The video volunteers program is the type of collaboration that really gets me excited about the social web. I think it’s really the tip of the iceberg in terms of allowing people and organizations to collaborate across geography and skill sets and overcome resource constraints to some extent. I’m hopeful that this type of venture will be successful. Doritos certainly found success crowdsourcing its Super Bowl ads — although perhaps submissions were motivated by the prizes and exposure that the Doritos contest offered. I don’t know if altruism is as strong a motivator.
What are your thoughts? Do you think it has potential? Will it fizzle? If you work with non-profit organizations, would you consider enlisting the help of YouTube’s video volunteers?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it has potential – in the future. Non-profs are slowly getting on the SM bandwagon – usually they are late adopters. They are just learning Twitter and Facebook. Staff time is an issue, I will agree. Many times, association staffers wear multiple hats and have a lot of projects going on. Mensa Phillipines had an extremely succesful YouTube campaign for their testing. We are looking into YouTube as well.
I wonder how many NPs will be receptive to this. As we depend on volunteers for a lot of things, it could work. I just wonder how they will go about doing it. It would have to be pitched very specifically.
Thanks for writing about this Amy – I was unaware until I saw your post. Really interesting possibility. As an agency that, like most, does some pro bono work for non-profits, we’d rather create the content ourselves and have it in our portfolio, than crowdsource it. But I could certainly envision this being an interesting option for some non-profits that aren’t able to work with an agency, and even potentially for the agency to explore. Great information.
I’m guessing that trade associations wouldn’t be part of this YouTube crowdsourcing effort but they could do something similar themselves. For example, many agencies belong to home builder associations (and other types of associations probably). Creating a video for the association would be a great way to both show their work and their commitment to the association to an audience of potential clients (builders). Why not put out a call for entries and have a competition where members (or open to all) vote on the association web site for the best video — create a best of show as well as other fun award categories.
Thanks for sharing this. As Lauren said, time is the biggest issue for non-profits. This YouTube program may help and I really hope it works!