Thanks to low-cost cameras, and free or inexpensive software tools, there’s a place for video production within the budget of even small nonprofits and associations. And distributing your videos on the Internet has never been cheaper or easier to do, thanks to video-sharing social sites like YouTube. If your organization is sharing videos online to promote your cause, you’re on the right track:
According to an April 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, the share of online adults who watch videos on video-sharing sites has nearly doubled since 2006... Over time, online video has also become a bigger fixture in everyday life, garnering 19% of all internet users who use video-sharing sites to watch on a typical day.
"Video is the future," agreed Heather Mansfield in a post at Nonprofit Tech 2.0 last month (with an update to the social media stats on 10/23/2009):
- YouTube receives 120 million unique visitors from the United States each month. Compare that to Facebook’s
72 million 95 million, MySpace’s 71 million 66 million and Twitter’s 21 million.
- An impressive 79% of the total U.S. Internet audience view online video each month, moving to 88% by 2012.
- Consumption is high across all demographics: 76% of children and 44% of seniors watched online video. Issues of race and class do not play themselves out on YouTube like they do on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
YouTube may be the grandaddy of video-sharing sites — and yes, you’ll definitely want to be there, especially if your organization qualifies for YouTube’s special program for nonprofits — but it’s not the only video-sharing game in town. Wider video distribution can mean greater exposure for your organization in return for a relatively small investment of time and effort.
7 More Good Free Video-Sharing Web Sites
Blip.tv rates highly for ease-of-use, yet offers a wide range of video upload and format options. For at least the past three years it has been consistently top-ranked among video-sharing sites by the leading tech media reviewers. Blip.tv supports Creative Commons licensing, and also distributes videos to a large number of other video web sites: see the FAQ for a list and for more information.
DoGooder.tv was created especially for nonprofits by see3 communications, who also offer an excellent series of tutorials, the free Guide to Online Video. While it lacks the active social element of YouTube and others, DoGooder.tv lets nonprofits easily embed a hosted video on their blogs or websites without concerns about it appearing on the site next to other content that may be inappropriate to the cause.
Revver is a bit different from the other video-sharing sites on this list: When you upload a video, human reviewers will take a look and assign it to a category. Ads are placed automatically on each video that’s uploaded, and Revver pays a share of advertising revenue to the content creators. Have a look at the FAQ for more information on how this all works.
Sevenload, out of Germany, has 20+ sub-sites for different countries and languages (the US/English homepage is linked above.) Sevenload bills itself as the “future of television” and is designed primarily to help users create and broadcast their own Internet shows through its web TV channels, although there’s a strong secondary focus on hosting and sharing photographs as well.
Tangle is a Christian video-sharing site that is very closely modelled on YouTube in terms of its navigation and function. Tangle invites its users to upload and share videos, music, and photographs, as well as connect with a “prayer wall” and online Bible study group. Obviously, this would be a good choice for church groups and Christian faith organizations who prefer to distance themselves from some of the content on mainstream sites.
Veoh has a habit of interrupting its users with pop-up ads, which may contain content that’s inappropriate for some nonprofits — or may simply annoy you too much to want to use it! Still, Veoh’s high popularity with young adults (particularly in Japan and UK, as well as in the United States) earns it a place on this list as a possible venue for humorous “viral” types of videos.
Vimeo is a high-quality video-sharing site created by and for filmmakers, video creators, and like-minded others. It’s easily the most professional in terms of technical standards, a respectful (moderated) user community, and quality of the uploaded content. Not for commercial use or third-party content.
This list is by no means complete, of course — there are literally hundreds of video-sharing sites of various types and sizes — but one or more of these seven (plus YouTube) will get you well started.
Yes, it will take some extra time to submit your video(s) to a number of different sites — never mind whatever time you may choose to invest in the social networking components — but a free video submission tool like tube mogul can help by posting your video automatically to multiple sites, including most of those on this list, and track your stats too.
Choosing the Right Video-Sharing Sites for Your Nonprofit
Among the many free video-sharing sites online are a good number of topic-specific sites with a tight topical or geographic focus, and many international sites that have been created to share videos produced in languages other than English. Some of those topical sites may be able help your organization to find a very targetted audience for your message, so you may want to do a quick Google search to see what’s out there that may right for you.
Most video-sharing sites have some technical restrictions on what you can upload — file size, duration, format of the uploaded video file, etc. — as well as varying standards for the kinds of content that can be uploaded to their servers. Technical restrictions are normally set to meet the needs of the most active users, so a small nonprofit that posts the occasional video is not likely to run into many problems.
Do check over the Terms of Service for each site, as well as the front page and recently popular videos, to make sure it’s an appropriate site for your nonprofit to join. (TechSoup has an oldie-but-goodie article, Understanding Video-Sharing Sites’ Terms of Service, to help you assess the licensing terms, privacy policies, and content guidelines under which each site operates.)
Finally, look for a variety of easy sharing and social bookmarking options, social networking functions on the site itself, and the ability for users to embed your uploaded video on their own blogs and websites. Many video-sharing sites also act as social networks — with “friends,” “favorites,” and comments — that can help you make connections with potential supporters and bring more attention to your videos and your organization. Look for those video-sharing sites that have the most user activity around your specific issue or cause, to help you prioritize which sites are likely to give the best results for your nonprofit.
What video-sharing sites, tools and tips do you have to share? What’s been working best for your nonprofit?
