I have recently had spectacular success using Social Media to highlight a concern at Chipping Norton Lido. I made a four-minute video detailing my reservations about "The Big Society" which I posted to YouTube and then promoted using “Twitter”.
One Friday afternoon I cleaned and tidied my office, positioned my web cam to achieve an “interesting” angle (i.e. not square-on to the computer screen) and spoke (in a couple of takes) into the lens. To keep me on track I had some cues on post-it notes stuck up round the camera and on my desk (you can see me glance at them now and then.) Using Apple’s “i-movie” I edited out the odd pause and added photos to illustrate the key points I was making (and to cover the really obvious fumbles for cues!) Using the devilishly simple software I added titles and some outro music and within an hour I had the finished article uploaded to YouTube.
I tweeted about it (generating 25 views from my 450 followers) and rescheduling the tweet throughout the rest of the day generated another 200 views. It was exiting to see more people re-tweeting and viewing the film over the weekend. By Monday I’d had 600 views and I thought it’d be great to get a total of 1,600 views (see the video if you want to know the significance of this magic number!)
I then used the "search" facility to identify others who had tweeted on the same subject of “The Big Society” and this is where I unleashed the power of Twitter!
I spotted tweets by (among others) journalist, India Knight, and comedian Marcus Brigstock all bemoaning or articulating their frustration with Mr Cameron’s ideology. I replied to their comments including a link to my own video. “Brilliant point there Marcus! See my rant about The Big Society http://link.” These three wonderful people retweeted the link (they have 60,000 followers between them) and within two weeks my video had been viewed 9,000 times. India Knight said, “Watch Mr Angry of Chipping Norton make a fair point about The Big Society”. One of India’s followers was Alan Rusbridger The Guardian’s Editor in Chief who in turn tweeted, “Watch this strangely compelling video” to his 30,000 followers.
The results have been brilliant.
I've raised £565 from people who followed the link to my fundraising page from the YouTube video. Some people have pointed me to funding streams that may prove useful, others have just sent good wishes and moral support. As for The Lido we've had interviews with the Banbury Guardian, The Daily Mirror, The New York Times, BBC Radio Five Live and The Guardian. Jeremy Clarkson wrote about us in his Sunday Times column at the weekend. October Films wants to make an hour-long documentary for Channel Four’s Dispatches programme using The Lido as an example of The Big Society in action. All fantastic PR (we’re currently considering the pros and cons of having a film crew follow us around for six months!)
Here are my top tips for making and promoting a YouTube Video.
- Plan and rehearse what you want to say
- Include a call to action
- Prepare to be contentious
- Wear your heart on your sleeve
- Be passionate and animated when speaking to camera
- Use post-it notes as key word cues
- Don’t worry about the odd verbal slip-up
- Set up the camera and room to look interesting
- Add pictures, titles and music if possible
- Add tags and links to the video description
- Respond to comments
- Tweet about it
- Schedule different tweets
- Identify others with an interest in your subject
- Tweet them and ask for their view.
- Be prepared to defend your view.
- Thank people for their advice, views and/or recommendations
