Sara Croft is the Social Media Coordinator for Easter Seals Crossroads, an Indianapolis nonprofit that provides services for children and adults with disabilities. Using twitter, I threw out an invitation for a guest blog post about using online video, she took advantage and sent us the following.
About a year ago, I was in one of our usual Monday morning department meetings when my boss looked me in the eye and said “I want to produce 3-5 minute videos to our blog once a week. Make it happen.” Despite the fact that neither my boss nor I knew nothing about what we were about to get in to, we took the idea and ran with it. Fast forward to October 2010 and we’ve successfully produced 40 unscripted, 3-5 minute “Tech Tip Monday” YouTube videos with over 13,000 views.
So, how did we do it?
As a nonprofit we had several things to consider, such as cost and time. We knew it was important to be producing video as often as we could, so keeping them short and sweet was a high priority. Our main goal was to highlight the services we provide and to show off some of the technology that we use to accommodate people with disabilities in the workplace, at school, or at home. It is one thing to write a blog about how a piece of technology works, but it’s another to show it in a video.
My boss bought a Flip camera and editing software for the PC. It started out with my boss filming them in his office behind his desk, and slowly we branched out to showing how special software works on the computer or interviewed staff members to talk about their area of expertise. Once we finished filming, we added some simple edits in the software program and uploaded the videos to YouTube.
The response from our videos was and still is overwhelming. Other state assistive technology projects like ours had not been doing video, and we became such a leader in this new discovery that we spoke nationally to all of the other projects about how we successfully implemented video into our marketing plan. It also helps us in our customer service efforts. People email or call me asking how a particular program or device works, and I can simply direct them to that video on our YouTube page.
I must say that producing video is only a small fraction of my everyday duties. Most employees of nonprofits wear a million hats. Mine include event planning, business presentations, customer service support, social media marketing and much more. Sometimes my weeks are wide open, and other times they are so full that the last thing on my mind is creating that weekly tech tip video. Our organization as a whole has recently looked to 12 Stars Media for assistance because we have realized that we simply do not have the time to be producing video as often as we like, especially if we include all of the departments and programs that we offer at Easter Seals Crossroads. Luckily, 12 Stars Media has several specialized options for an organization to be as hands-on or hands-off as they like.
I strongly urge all nonprofits to utilize video in their marketing efforts – IT CAN BE DONE at little cost and effort!
About Rocky Walls
