Getting your supporters to take the next step when your video ends

This is part two of a three-part series on how nonprofits can create engaging multimedia stories that motivate supporters to take a desired action. Part two describes the use of call-to-action video overlays to boost ROI. Also see part one:

• Creating compelling advocacy videos for nonprofits

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, businesses and their corporate social responsibility (CSR) divisions, video producers, Web publishers.

While the audience for online video continues to grow, the advances in Web video technology are changing at a dizzying pace, making it hard for nonprofits to keep up. There are several good online video platforms and third-party apps available to convert views into actions. YouTube’s call-to-action video overlay, third-party video apps and customized video domains or microsites offer great options for boosting the return on investment of your nonprofit’s video program.

YouTube’s call-to-action video overlay

Most nonprofit Web videos make mention of their organization’s URL either verbally or with graphics edited into the video. But the effectiveness of your message is cut short if you don’t include a clickable call to action that takes visitors to your website, Facebook Page or Twitter page to make a donation or to take another desired action.

YouTube’s nonprofit program offers two such call-to-action video apps that can be easily implemented: overlays and annotations.

If your nonprofit is not already part of the Google for nonprofits program, consider applying. The free program offers many benefits and can become a center for creating effective calls to action and engagement:

• Free or discounted version of Google Apps for your organization
• Premium branding capabilities and increased uploads on YouTube
• The option to drive fundraising through a Google Checkout “Donate” button
• The ability to add a call-to-action overlay on your videos to drive campaigns
• The ability to post volunteering opportunities on the YouTube Video Volunteers platform
• Free Adwords advertising

Examples of video calls to action — in action

Here are a few examples of how nonprofits have incorporated overlays and annotations to drive a specific course of action.

This Angry Kid Greenpeace video is heartfelt and does a great job delivering its message. Unfortunately, the creators stop short by simply offering engaged viewers the opportunity to visit their website at the end with no actionable link:

The Darius Goes West video takes it a step further and adds a call-to-action overlay to visit Darius’ Twitter page as part of the YouTube player:

The use of  annotations to engage the viewer and encourage interactivity can be seen in The Hug The World video (after the initial 15 second ad):

This Greenpeace video celebrating a victory over rainforest destruction also uses annotations in their call to action by encouraging the viewer to “like” the video:

Third-party video player overlays

There are several companies that have emerged recently that market call-to-action video player skins that are designed to be layered on top of players such as YouTube or Vimeo. Viewbix, for example, offers “to put the entire Web experience in the video player.”  Their software allows video creators to add elements of their websites, social networks and more into the video player so that when they share the video on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube they take all their calls-to-action and content with them.

To illustrate, Socialbrite partner Major Multimedia, a nonprofit video training and production company, created a Viewbix overlay for a video created for a client, Chicago Cares, to recognize outstanding volunteers at their awards banquet. This video is housed on Viewbix’s website but can be embedded, copied and shared.

Videos for a customized video domain or microsite

While hosting on YouTube has its advantages for nonprofits, a professional multimedia firm can help you custom-design media-driven websites and microsites that integrate with your nonprofit’s existing organizational website with platforms such as Vmix, Convio, Kaltura or Drupal (compare).

Just a little over two years ago, Pathfinder International had no videos online and little in-house video production. With the help of See3 Communications, Pathfinder launched a microsite that is built entirely around video sharing: Girl2Woman.

Pathfinder shared how they opted not to use YouTube because “we couldn’t control the look and feel as much as we would have liked, we wanted to count the shares of the videos (not the views), and we wanted to focus on integrating features like the call to action share.”  They’ve still posted the videos on YouTube, however, so that others can embed them.

They documented specific objectives for wanting viewers to share their microsite:

1. to raise the visibility of reproductive health needs throughout a woman’s life
2. to raise $1 million (and for each video share, a generous donor is giving $1 to Pathfinder)
3. to leverage the share functionality to increase the number of registrations by constituents

To meet those goals, they needed to be able to count the number of shares and capture the information of people who shared, which they couldn’t do with a YouTube hosted site.

In fact, embedding video on a nonprofit’s own website can be better for your SEO — when a video is published on a third-party site, links to those videos just increase the page rank of the third-party site, not the nonprofit’s own site. If the video is published on the nonprofit’s site they have full control over the links on that site and the corresponding SEO.

Regardless of which of these call-to-action options your nonprofit chooses, remember to:

• first build your social network & encourage conversation before inserting a call to action
• use a clear and distinct call to action that tells the viewer exactly what you want them to do
• connect viewers to URLs that elaborate on your story.

Consider placing the “call” on the skin or at the end of the video to encourage the viewer to watch until the end and follow through on the call to action. Also, because each video hosted is different, the call to action might be different depending upon the content and desired outcome.

The most important part of your call to action is ensuring that it fits with what your audience needs. When it matches the exact needs of your audience, taking the recommended next step will be a natural course of action for viewers.

Please share your own experience with call-to-action video apps and online video platforms.

Related

• Creating compelling advocacy videos for nonprofits (Socialbrite)
• Techniques to add dazzle to your advocacy video (Socialbrite)
• How to find amazing, powerful stories for your nonprofit video (Socialbrite)
• How to use microsites to better tell your nonprofit’s story (Socialbrite)
• 6 ways YouTube is helping out nonprofits, including call-to-action-overlays (Socialbrite)
• Five Nonprofits Maximizing YouTube’s Nonprofit Program (Nonprofitorgs)

The post How to effectively use calls to action in nonprofit videos appeared first on Socialbrite.

Answer: Me!

Yep, I’d love to volunteer for your nonprofit for free.

Who am I?

My name is David Spark, founder of Spark Media Solutions, a custom publishing/social media firm. So many companies and organizations want to be seen as leading voices in their field, but they try to do it with marketing, branding, and public relations alone, which is not possible. To develop thought leadership, organizations must create editorial content, just like any other media outlet does in order to create voice. And that’s exactly what our organization does. We help companies build their industry voice.

Please feel free to look at my bio, my blog, and my business site.

I’d love to help your nonprofit be seen as an industry leader.

Why I want to volunteer for your nonprofit

• While I’m very busy, I’d like to reserve 10-15 hours a month to volunteer for a nonprofit.
• I’ve been on a couple of nonprofit boards in the past and I’ve really enjoyed the experience.
• I’m eager to experiment with many different publishing and social media techniques.
• I’m looking to work with a nonprofit to generate stories of what works and what doesn’t work in social media.

What I’m looking for in a nonprofit

• I’d like to assist a nonprofit that’s already engaged in social media and is eager to do something more aggressive.
• OR I’d like to work with a nonprofit that’s sold on social media but just doesn’t know what to do first and needs some guidance.
• I’d also like an organization that has the staff to actually engage in social media. Even if they’re overloaded right now, there are ways to shift current efforts into the social sphere.

What I’m NOT looking for in a nonprofit

• I’m not looking for an organization that needs convincing that they should be spending time and money engaging in social media.
• I’m not looking for an organization that just wants me to do all the work for them.

Are we a good match?

Please just leave a comment on this blog post and let me know who you are, the name of your organization, what you’ve done, where you’d like to be, and ultimately how I can get in contact with you.

When will I make my decision?

Depending on response, I expect to make my decision by the end of the first week of December. I will be picking only one nonprofit for now.

The post Hey nonprofits, what’s better than a BIG donor? appeared first on Socialbrite.

eBay shoppers donated $50 million to nonprofits in 2009 — a record

Right before the holidays, eBay released 2009 figures for its Giving Works fundraising program — and marked a historic record for total funds raised for non-profits through ebay.com. According to the report, the eBay community gave $50 million to nonprofits, a 17% jump over 2008 despite the ongoing recession. The program allows individuals to donate while using eBay.

I was lucky enough to do a quick email interview with Robert Chatwani, eBay’s head of Global Citizenship, to learn more behind the numbers.

1. Give me your elevator pitch

At eBay, we think about citizenship and sustainability in terms of People, Planet, and Communities. Our focus is on harnessing the reach and scale of our core businesses – eBay and PayPal – to create a positive impact. By fostering entrepreneurship for global sellers, keeping goods out of landfills through the sale of pre-owned products, and raising funds for nonprofits through sales on eBay, we’re growing our business and enabling millions of eBay users to participate by voting with their dollars. Plus we have 15,000 employees around the world who get to think about changing the world through their everyday work, which is really exciting.

In terms of giving – we see two large macro trends taking place. The first is that online giving is growing fast, at a rate that’s 7 times faster than offline giving. The other is that many more consumers are thinking about social and environmental values when making decisions about what to buy. These consumers have new mindset, and they’re more practical and socially conscious than ever before.

More about eBay’s different CSR and sustainability initiatives can be accessed here.

2. Many nonprofits are talking about how fundraising is down this year and the rough year ahead. Yet giving is up for ebay Giving Works. What gives?

First and foremost, we’re fortunate to have generous buyers and sellers using eBay. And you’re correct – the reality is that consumers are more conscious about their spending and giving these days. But we decided early on that rather than asking eBay users to give more, we’d create simple ways for more users to give. It’s very powerful to combine shopping and giving into a single transaction. We offer 5 different ways to give, and users can donate as little as $1 to their favorite charities. In the world of online giving, this idea of “micro philanthropy” is still a new concept – and one that we are seeing really take hold, especially given the current economic climate. The bottom line is that internal innovation and lowering barriers for our users has led to a surge in giving on eBay. We’ll exit this year at over $50 million raised for global nonprofits.

Robert Chatwani, right, moderating a panel on crowdsourcing for social good last summer (photo by JD Lasica)

3. How are the organizations that receive donations selected?

We work with a partner organization, MissionFish, to verify an organization’s 501(c)(3) status via a simple online form. We now have over 21,000 charities in the program and it continues to grow. Qualifying nonprofits receive their own dedicated eBay Giving Works page that shows all the listings and sellers benefiting them. We love to see new nonprofits join the program.

4. What advice would you give to nonprofits that want to be recipients?

There are several ways to make your nonprofit stand out on eBay. What works well is when the nonprofit organization promotes their relationship with eBay to their current members and donors. By simply selling products on eBay, sellers can elect to have up to 100% of the final sales price donated to their favorite nonprofit. We take care of all of the donation processing and tax paperwork.

Beyond that, we often feature nonprofits and promote selected organizations to millions of buyers and sellers. Lastly, we provide banners and buttons that organizations can place on their website to direct supporters to their eBay Giving Works page, which features products that benefit their organization. We also host discussion boards and provide selling assistance to make the process easy.

5. We’ve been hearing a lot of about selfish giving and lethal generosity, etc. What does eBay get from this giving?

It’s an interesting debate, and to us, there are a few factors at play here. The birth of the Giving Works program at eBay was, in large part, a response the charitable – and purely altruistic – instincts of our buyer community. It actually started as an effort to put a process and infrastructure in place for individuals that wanted to support the families and victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001. At the time, the program was called Auction for America. Since then the program has evolved into a platform where all types of users – including buyers, sellers, and nonprofits – can connect with one another to drive forward the missions and goals of an unbelievably wide range of causes…a marketplace, of sorts, for charitable giving.

In terms of motive, the truth is that it varies according to user. Buyers often look for items that bear the eBay Giving Works ribbon because supporting their favorite cause makes them feel good. Oftentimes, sellers will donate a percentage of proceeds to causes that they believe in, simply because they believe it is the right thing to do. A great example of this is a woman named Elizabeth Bennet, who runs an eBay store called AfricaDirect. To date, she has donated nearly $40,000 via the eBay Giving Works program.

That said, there is truth to the argument that alignment with a cause can be good for business – in fact, just last week, a study was released that indicated that eBay buyers are actually willing to pay more to do good. We’ve seen that an eBay Giving Works item advertising that 10 percent of proceeds will be given to charity is nearly 20 percent more likely to sell than its non-charity equivalent, and at a two percent higher price. To us, this creates a win-win where each participant can realize the benefits of transacting with one another. We call this “sustainable philanthropy” – creating business-relevant motivations that encourage charitable behavior.

More information on the study can be found on the Forbes site.

Note: I just set up an eBay account for the Sharing Foundation

Does your nonprofit have a profile on eBay? If so, what has been your experience?

Cross-posted from Beth’s Blog.

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