Category Archives: YouTube
YouTube Create – Another Giant Leap For Simple Content Creation
I frequently reference Google Search Stories as a good example of a brand smartly using a storytelling platform to enable your target audience to enhance a message or engage with a product. We’re continuing to see the social Web push even further to find innovative ways to simplify content creation for mainstream audiences.
Last week, online content creators unleashed a yelp as YouTube released a dashboard to make it as easy as pie for users to create animation videos. Hop over to Mashable to check out the full story about the integration of three fun animation platforms tied in as part of www.youtube.com/create. The creative opportunities for message deployment, crowdsourcing and entertaining contests are endless with tools like these at your disposal.
As an avid content creator, I threw together the sample below as part of a personal branding presentation I’m doing with some co-workers at WSU’s Morrow Symposium next week. Hopefully, there is a wee bit of helpful advice for the flood of new grads hitting the industry.
Happy animating!
*This post also appears on the Weber Shandwick Seattle blog.
Old Spice Another Proof Point for Capturing Production
We all love good content. The perfect combination of text, audio and images delivered at the right time to the right audience is something content marketing pros strive for on a daily basis.
A huge chunk of campaign planning is typically devoted to developing the overarching storytelling framework and the crucial content that supports that framework. Without targeted content, you’re left with a great story but no actionable plan or vehicle for connecting that story with your audience.
A post last week on PR Daily highlighted the excellent video Old Spice recently published that provides the public with a “behind the scenes” look at their continued “Old Spice Man” campaign. Uploaded to YouTube on March 1st, the video has already garnered more than 500,000 views.
A similar successful “production capture” video was created last year around the Guy Walks Across America Levis video. I mentioned this in a previous post last year but I love the video and it’s great context for what Old Spice pulled off with their own effort.
Why Does It Matter?
In short, it’s a smart tactic and simple way to beef up your content framework to leverage your storyline beyond initial campaign execution. If you’re going to dump a lot of money into production, it makes sense to capture and tell the story about how that production came together and was executed. Both cases above demonstrate that there will always be a technical or brand enthusiast audience that craves more than the initial content/brand touchpoint. Give ‘em what they crave.
Note: This post also appears on Weber Shandwick Seattle’s blog.
Are Nonprofits Maximizing Use of YouTube Annotations?
More than two years ago, I published this post about YouTube annotations with an example of how some companies were putting the tool to use for creative storytelling. In short, annotations provide video producers with the ability to create “choose your own adventure” style videos that increase viewer engagement.
This past weekend, Mashable featured a post outlining some more recent examples of interactive YouTube videos. Being involved in the nonprofit marketing space, I’ve always found it interesting that more nonprofits haven’t latched onto annotations as an excellent storytelling tactic.
In my research, I stumbled across this post from Dan Portnoy on the topic. Dan posted a good example of how the use of annotations has helped the Union Rescue Mission with their Winter Shelters program. The team did a great job of using the annotations tool to provide a simple call-to-action at the end of the video that allows a viewer to continue to learn more while also providing a quick option for donations.
In another example, the Mashable post features the “Choose a Different Ending” video series below produced by London’s Metropolitan Police to create awareness among young people about the danger of carrying weapons.
The first person point of view and storyline help to put a user in the driver’s seat for role playing. It’s a fantastic idea and shows a thorough understanding of their target audience, using an interactive format (vs. plain PSA) to engage and educate on a channel kids are already visiting online. In addition, the simple, shareable format of the video makes it a fantastic education tool that teachers anywhere could use in their classrooms.
Annotations open up a host of storytelling ideas to convey your organization’s mission or position messaging into a creative format for a campaign. What ideas come to mind for how you might put annotations to use?
Note: This post also appears on the Weber Shandwick Seattle blog.
