e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Online Advocacy Tools: Video and Animation

July 3rd, 2006

Updated June, 2008

Though online video has really broken out big in the last couple of years, campaigns and random citizens have been using short video clips (live-action or animated) to promote their ideas and pummel their enemies for years. But broadband’s easy availability and the recent explosion of video posting sites like YouTube makes it much more effective than before — users no longer hesitate to click on video links like they might have a few years ago, and you’re not going to lack for easy places to post your content as an outreach tool.

Of course, the huge expansion of online video makes it hard to break through the clutter: the next “Yes We Can” is competing with millions of YouTube clips created by both amateurs and professionals. Besides the new generation of home video enthusiasts, music labels are promoting bands, broadcast networks are hyping their shows, and P.R. firms from all over the world are pushing “clever” promotional video clips in hopes of viral takeoff.

Why Use Video?

Campaigns have found that video can be a powerful tool in part because it helps create more of an emotional connection with a subject – having someone TELL you about a political issue is usually more compelling than reading about it. Also, good video can take complex issues and make them immediately understandable, in that picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words way. One consideration, though, is that video is often quite time-consuming. Posting an unedited clip is relatively easy, but anything that needs editing can quickly turn into a huge project. I’ve heard video producers estimate 30-40 hours of work to produce a 3-minute clip, if it needs to be scripted, shot and edited.

The Basics

So, now that we’ve decided to use video (or animation), how do we do it? First, campaigns can host clips on their own websites, blogs, MySpace sites, etc., to vividly illustrate their ideas, to show their candidates in a godlike light, to highlight opponents’ misdeeds and overall perfidy, etc. This tactic is really a no-brainer, and you’re only limited by your ability to create content — plenty of people are doing amazing things with $200 video cameras, and hosting is cheap unless you’re getting gigabytes of data accessed weekly. Good video (and Flash animation) can make your case in a dramatic and immediate way and is often the centerpiece of viral campaigns. One particular advantage of using video hosting sites is that you can usually “embed” the video in your own page: paste in a snippet of code, and your readers can watch the video directly on your site without having to open the video clip as a separate document.

One note — if possible, “watermark” your pieces so that your URL displays within the picture as they play. This way, if someone copies the file and distributes it independently of your site, viewers will still have a way to find you. Also, besides linking to issue-specific clips in the appropriate places on your site, you’ll probably want to create a central page that collects all of your video (and/or audio) in one place — here’s an example from the NET site.

Reaching Out

Next, campaigns can use video as an outreach tool by posting clips on Google video, YouTube or their competitors, hoping to capture new supporters as they come across them. Most sites will allow you to create a “channel” that gathers all of your videos in one place and may allow you to link back to your main site or your action center. Again, watermarking is a good idea.

Posting videos is the beginning of the battle, but if you really want them to be seen, you’ll need to spread the word using all of your normal promotional mechanisms. Link to them from your main website and social network profiles, promote them to your email list, and make sure that it’s as easy as possible for viewers to forward your link to others (a feature generally built into video-sharing sites). Also, keep in mind that YouTube and other video-sharing sites usually display a handful of popular or noteworthy clips on their front page and on category pages, and your viewership can spike if you can build enough traffic on your own to start being featured. Pay close attention to copyright! Some sites will reserve the right to use your content for their own purposes.

Social Media

Finally, as discussed in much more detail in the chapter on Social Media, campaigns use video as an organizing and motivating tool by letting their supporters create and edit video content and upload it directly to the campaign site.

Next: Advertising

Robot-Selected "Related" Articles:

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• Campaign 2006 Online — Four Insiders’ Views