Ask the Expert: Ramya Raghavan on YouTube for Nonprofits
Event Details
YouTube is most likely the first place you go when you're searching for video on the web. Does your nonprofit have a voice on YouTube? Are you already participating in YouTube's Nonprofit Program? Are you curious about how to use YouTube for your cause more effectively?
Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits and Activism Manager at YouTube, will be on hand during this Ask the Expert online chat to help demystify the use of video to reach your audience. She leads YouTube's Agent Change Program for Nonprofits. You can learn more about YouTube's Nonprofit Program and Ramya on our blog or here.
NTEN Members will have an exclusive opportunity to ask Ramya questions and hear them answered.
> Get the Recording! FREE for NTEN Members!
Event Materials
Below you'll find a transcript of the chat questions as well as some comments made during the live Q&A session.
Thank you to Ramya and to all who participated!
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ntenhross: Welcome to Ask the Expert today with Ramya from YouTube
ntenhross: If you want to change your screen name, just enter it into the "Edit nickname" box under the chat window
ntenhross: This is Holly from NTEN. Anyone have any questions right now?
IFYC Team: hey everyone! Interfaith Youth Core team here
Kimberly at EWG: what are some outstanding campaigns you've seen run on youtube?
Kimberly at EWG: what's the best way to crunch your video?
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Is there a way to be automatically notified when comments are posted on your videos/channel? (sorry if this is a basic question)
Gregory Fearon: Do you have plans to inckude a search box on the Nonprofits & Activism page so I can find videos on topics?
IFYC Team: our organization made 2 accounts, one is a nonprofit one, and one is a regular one, can we merge them?
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: What are the keys to a good viral video?
SouthArts: when I'm told that I was the 90th most viewed nonprofit this week, what does that mean. 90 out of how many?
Kate and Heather at Watershed: Hi Ramya! What are some ways YouTube nonprofit channel functionality is being optimized for fundraising and advocacy?
Shoes That Fit: for an absolute newcomer to the YouTube scene, where can we find the "basics". which video format to use, how to join other community groups, etc.
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: When subscribers are banned by YouTube, is there a way they can be removed from our subscriber list?
JoMarie at Northridge: After a video is done playing, links to related videos appear. Is there a ways to either supress those entirely, or control which ones appear (eg - just ones from your channel or specific videos individuals)?
CompuCorps: When will "YouTube NonProfit" be available for Canadian charities and NonProfits?
Kate and Heather at Watershed: Is the nonprofit channel category restricted to C3 orgs, or can C4 orgs use them too?
WeAreFamilyFdtn: How do you recommend we bridge our umbrella Foundaiton YouTube Channel and multiple Initiative/Program centric channels... creating a web of content for our overall Foundation
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Ramya, I'd also love it if you could go more into what it means for an organization to be "policy-focused" and aren't eligible as a YouTube Nonprofit
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: What's the most common avenue for people to find videos, tags? search? Embeds from other sites? Links from e-newsletters? And how do you choose which videos are featured on the main page?
Talia: Is there a reason this product is only available for US nonprofits? Will this open up to international nonprofits in the future?
ntenhross: http://www.24hoursfordarfur.org/
usha (AI): i want to second talia's question. we work with a lot of international grassroots NGOs. they can benefit greatly if the youtube non profit program is extended internationally. any plans? hopefully soon? :)
WeAreFamilyFdtn: Hi Ramya, can you speak up a bit? Thanks.
Kimberly at EWG: How can we have our supporters participate on our YouTube channel (and contribute or remix content) without opening it up to the whole YouTube universe?
Anna_NTEN: Oxfam starbucks day of action -
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/coffee/starbucks/dayofaction
IFYC Team: we want supporters to be on our site, should we allow our videos to be embeddable?
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: But tags should be related to your video, right... not just popular keywords...?
SouthArts: what's the difference between a 'friend' and a 'subscriber'
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: With so many videos online, do you think production values are becoming more important? Better shooting, pro editing, etc?
IFYC Team: If you are possibly going to be submitting a short to a film festival, is it not advisable to post it on YouTube, as well?
Gregory Fearon: Erin & Fresh - Especially when some of us are playing your videos on large screen environments for the general public.
Anna_NTEN: http://www.youtube.com/nonprofits
WeAreFamilyFdtn: Louder Please
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: What are you looking for in the videos you feature on the main page?
afsc: We (AFSC) applied for nonprofit status, but never heard back... how do we follow up?
SouthArts: how does one change the user id to something more relevant?
Anna_NTEN: http://www.youtube.com/t/yt_handbook_home
Kate and Heather at Watershed: How are the qualifications an organization has to meet in order to acquire nonprofit status on YouTube?
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: What's a policy-focused nonprofit?
jsb: is success defined as "going big?"
usha (AI): for eric & fresh energy crew wanting to know how to be notified every time there is a comment - you can set the notification up my account > email options
WeAreFamilyFdtn: What is the average length of time a user views a video, do they watch anything longer than 4 minutes? Attention spans are shrinking! What stats does YouTube have on the habbits of users in the NonProfit area...
Gregory Fearon: Kate & Heather - check out Guidestar.org or Nolo Press's Nonprofit handbook.
IFYC Team: yes! we have no content on the IFYC (np acct) and the regular one has all our content..
IFYC Team: can we just upgrade our regular account to a nonprofit account?
Mary Sue at Girl Scouts: As a youth based organization, is there a way to limit the types of related videos? I'm concerned if we have members going to the site, they may see inappropriate links for their age level.
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: IFYC - I would recommend in the meantime, making them a playlist on your non-profit page
IFYC Team: Thank you, Sara!
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Does YouTube see itself now as more of aninformation site rather than an entertainment site? If so, is it better to be factual or funny?
Bill & Brian & Marinho at CompuCorps: Why should a non profit put videos on YouTube Nonprofit instead of developing its own channel on its website?
WeAreFamilyFdtn: can you give those stats again? Donors on YouTube vs. Facebook
Kate and Heather at Watershed: Even when a video goes viral, list signup conversion rates from YouTube seem to stay pretty low. Is it/will it be possible to embed a signup form on a video or channel page?
Anna_NTEN: http://www.nothingbutnets.net/
IFYC Team: Have you seen a direct correlation between non profits embedding one of their videos on their homepage and the traffic that non profit receives on their YouTube channel? Does this increase traffic flow in a significant way?
Mary Sue at Girl Scouts: I just got booted from the phone portion and when I called back it says all circuits are busy. Has this happened to anyone else?
Anna_NTEN: http://www.theflip.com/
Anna_NTEN: tip sheet - http://www.youtube.com/t/ngo_tips
fennel @ tides: what (free) video editting tools do you recommend? PC? MAC?
WeAreFamilyFdtn: We love the flip cam! They have a NonProfit division which allows Nonprofs to buy two for one
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Is there a way to improve video quality on YouTube? Should we convert to flash ourselves before uploading?
IFYC Team: Erin & fresh energy - there is usually a "high quality" link on the bottom right hand corner, below your video. It helps improve the picture quality of your video.
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Thanks IFYC. We use other sites as well.
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: Erin and Fresh - I upload 640x480, High Quality Quicktime out of FCP 6.0 and I will get high quality.
Gregory Fearon: IFYC - I produced a video festival last year from a blog which had links to the urls on YouTube. It definately increased traffic to our site during the prelims and finals.
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: Fennel....Windows Movie Maker isn't TOO bad. It gets the job done. The Flip video camcorder also comes with editing software on the camera itself
IFYC Team: Thanks, Gregory!
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Thx Sara
Gregory Fearon: Sara - WMM works great for photos and sound videos!
fennel @ tides: Groovy. Perfect Sara.
Gregory Fearon: I vote for subcategories so we can work better together.
ntenhross: 15 minutes to go! Keep those questions coming!
Anna_NTEN: http://flipvideospotlight.com/
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: We like Sony Vegas for basic stuff. Final Cut for heavy duty.
IFYC Team: final cut express is great and not as expensive as pro
fennel @ tides: nice. super helpful. go IFYC & Gregory.
Ramya: http://www.youtube.com/t/yt_handbook_home
IFYC Team: (non profit discounts available thru apple if you bring your tax letter - on final cut express)
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: I come from a professional tv environment and use Avid and Final Cut Pro, but honestly most of the video you'll ever edit will never need anything more special than a few cuts and dissovles.
IFYC Team: I agree Sara- unless you're doing television ads, you don't need very fancy skills or programs.
Denis in ABQ: For cheap, basic video editing: Capture, edit & compress video using VideoStudio 8 for Windows XP (available to youth-related education and/or training nonprofits at techsoup.org for $30)
fennel @ tides: transcript functionality coming in the future? written word to support video audio? text transcript to translate into other languages?
WeAreFamilyFdtn: Creative's Vado is also a great affordable video camera... 99$ and can record broadcast quality AVI
ntenhross: Keep those questions coming!
Marian: Why use YouTube Nonprofit rather than develop a channel on our own website?
ntenhross: @Marian - thanks! Will ask that next
Mary Sue at Girl Scouts: As a youth based organization, I'm concerned about the featured links and some may not be appropriate for their age level. Is there a way to limit the types or does YouTube control that in an way?
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Does YouTube see itself transforming to an information site from an entertainment site? If so, should users aim to be more factual than funny? Or does making people laugh make videos more viral?
Sara: at NationalWildlifeFederation What are the most searched words in the non profit channels?
WeAreFamilyFdtn: How do you recommend we bridge our umbrella Foundaiton YouTube Channel and multiple Initiative/Program centric channels... creating a web of content for our overall Foundation. or is all on one channel best?
Taprootdancer: going to be more users on YouTube than your own website
fennel @ tides: Thank you so much Ramya & YouTube. Very exciting.
bchoc: Why not post it to your website and YouTude, both?
Taprootdancer: if you question that, set up Google anlaytics and look at your website stats
Denis in ABQ: What's the policy on using copyrighted materials in our videos? We do media literacy education, which involves analyzing & critiquing media messages (ads, TV shows, etc.) Can we use excerpts from these media examples in our videos?
Taprootdancer: based on Alexa data, YouTube is the 4th most trafficked site in the US
Taprootdancer: you should be able to ...just as long as your provide reference. Take a look at how the Daily show handles it
ntenhross: @MarySue - I think we covered this while you were off the phne momentarily - the answer. sadly, is no
Anna_NTEN: climate change, animal welfare,
Mary Sue at Girl Scouts: thanks, I'll check out the recording
Anna_NTEN: Rolling Dog Ranch - http://www.youtube.com/user/rollingdogranch
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: We have been trying to organize our page the best. What do you recommend be your featured video? One that overviews your organization? Or your most recent video?
Sara at NationalWildlifeFederation: We use playlists to organize our different campaigns as well
Anna_NTEN: Helping the Honeybees - http://www.youtube.com/user/helpthehoneybees
Taprootdancer: more microsites means your tripling your online marketing efforts
Taprootdancer: yahoo hates new sites, so it will be hard to generate traffic to a completely new site
Gregory Fearon: Sara - Most recent embeded, and lower on the page the url to the overall. Keep them coming back.
Anna_NTEN links here - http://www.youtube.com/nonprofits
WeAreFamilyFdtn: Shameless Plug: Check out http://www.threedotdash.org - our latest Global Youth Initiative
See3(www.see3.net): for the question about using copyrighted material....check out the Center for Social Media's resources on FAIR USE. in general, if you're commenting on the material, it's considered okay.
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: What was that demographic feature again?
See3(www.see3.net): http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/fair…
Taprootdancer: more tips about YouTube insight here: http://searchmarketingfornonprofits.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/using-youtubes-analytics-insight/
Erin Stojan Ruccolo & Fresh Energy crew: Thanks!
SouthArts: This was one of the most helpful conference calls I've ever been on. thanks
WeAreFamilyFdtn What's Ramya's email?
Anna_NTEN: agentchange@youtube.com
Ramya: and in case you missed it, here's the link to the nonprofit program: http://www.youtube.com/nonprofits
