I keep hearing about nonprofits that are struggling with social media. You’re job is hard enough without not knowing how to use these free and powerful tools.
I want to offer you the opportunity to pick my brain for 30 minutes. We’ll talk through Skype or over the phone and you can ask me whatever you like about social media. This is a chance for you to learn. I won’t be selling anything. It’s all about helping you.
In my career, I’ve benefited from the wisdom and generosity of others and I want to continue the tradition.
Contact me to set up your call. I’ll take the first five to sign up.
During the Superbowl, I noticed a couple of interesting things when it came to advertisements. As you know, companies pay big bucks to have an ad on during the game. They want to make sure they get as much bang for the buck.
The first thing that I realized is that many companies don’t wait until the big game before releasing the spots. Several days earlier, Volkswagen released this spot through YouTube:
The idea was to get people talking about the commercial ahead of time. In a sea of commercials during the Superbowl, it’s more likely that people will shush their friends and have them watch the spot.
It’s not rare to see a commercial that does not have a web address, Facebook, or Twitter address appear at the end. The goal is to engage the audience as well as measure their reaction to the ad. This kind of thing can make a message, stick, instead of being entertaining and then forgotten.
If the big companies are using the same basic social media tools to maximize their million dollar advertisement accounts, then why aren’t you taking advantage of them as well?
Do you have a great speaker at your next event but can’t afford to video tape them? Why not consider this low cost alternative? In the clip below, I used a digital audio recorder to record a short presentation. Then I took the mp3 recording and put it in a video editor. Then I added still photos to “cover” the black spots.
Now I have a video that I can post on YouTube and share with my supporters. In your case, you can use photos from your nonprofit’s event as your wallpaper video.
Don’t let a small budget limit your creativity.
Additional Resources:
Click here for Five Reasons Why Your Social Media Strategy Fails.
Here’s a video I recently put together for a nonprofit client. This is a good example of how you don’t need fancy equipment to make an impact on the viewer. The project also had a clear focus. It’s designed to raise awareness and funds for domestic abuse prevention programs aimed at teenagers.
Also note that the audience members were mostly minors, so I made sure that their identities were concealed.
Can your nonprofit give people something that takes them further into your world? If a video is too time consuming, maybe you should try a short audio recording. It can be as simple as asking a few questions to some of your top stakeholders. Then post the clip on your website or blog. And of course, don’t forget to tell people that it’s there.
In the spirit of giving, let me offer you the first 15 minutes from one of my speaking presentations. To download the free clip, go here. There are no strings attached. Enjoy! To find out more about my talks, click here.
Coming up, well talk about how you can use YouTube, even if you don’t have any video to share.
Several studies have found that you have less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor’s attention on your hompage. So despite the fact that you’ve designed a wonderful website, they may never see anything more than the homepage. How do you get them to stick around and look around? Embed a welcome video on your homepage.
This is easy to do with YouTube. The video doesn’t have to be long. In fact, it can be better if it’s less than 30 seconds. Welcome people, put a face on your organization, and tell them a quick fact or two. That’s all you need to do. Click here to see an example of this kind of welcome video from my speaking website.
When it comes to recording their nonprofit’s YouTube video, some people freeze up on camera. Off camera, they know what they want to say but once they’re ready to start talking for the video, they go blank. It’s a common social media challenge.
A new, free online application can help with this challenge. http://www.easyprompter.com/ allows you to type in a script and then view it on your computer as you would through a professional teleprompter. This could work especially well if you are reading into a computer’s webcam.
The application also lets you adjust font size, scrolling speed, and the capitalization of words. As a broadcasting veteran, I found it to be a good tool.
A word of caution: It does take practice to read a teleprompter and not sound mechanical. I would probably use it as a cue for major topics or important phrases, rather than every word of your video. Nevertheless, this is a very budget friendly tool that can make your YouTube clips a lot more user friendly.
A lot of nonprofits get nervous when it comes to editing video. They’ve taken the time to record a clip but are afraid to share it with the world because of some minor technical issues. This could be as much as someone saying, “Is it on?” at the start of a recording. Don’t miss out on this great social media tool.
At first, video editing can be a bit intimidating but over time it will become easier. If you are new to it, you might want to try a new service from YouTube called Video Editor. It can be accessed through this link: http://www.youtube.com/testtube
It allows you to do some basic editing to your previously uploaded YouTube clips. I found it to be pretty user friendly. It’s not as flexible as other editors, like Windows Moviemaker (which is free from Microsoft), but it’s also less complicated. You can trim the start and end of clips, mix and match different clips together, and add some music to your project.
Don’t let a fear of editing keep you from sharing your video message with your community.
This week I was the guest presenter on this webinar. It’s free to view. Enjoy!
Here’s the description: On-demand webinar featuring Ken Okel on strategies to drive awareness, lead generation and customer engagement through multi-media and online video marketing.
We packed a lot of information in the 20 minutes. To view the session click here.
I keep hearing about nonprofits that are struggling with social media. You’re job is hard enough without not knowing how to use these free and powerful tools.
Posted by Ken Okel 
