First, notice how I didn’t say ‘make your videos go viral’? There’s a reason: ‘making’ a video go viral is the equivalent to ‘making’ that stranger across the room fall madly in love with you. Sure, there are some things you can do to improve your chances of this happening, but you can’t guarantee or force it to happen. You can just follow the best practices (dress nice, find something in common to talk about), position yourself for success (flirting), and work really hard to make it happen.

We are currently working with the nonprofit NH Conference on Aging to provide event management and marketing services for their annual conference. This week, we had a unique opportunity to join forces with a local cable-access television studio to produce a promotional video for the conference. If you’re as unfamiliar with the world of community televion as we were before this shoot, you’ll be interested to learn about the unique opportunities available to nonprofits and those that can provide a value to their local community.

Key takeaways from our first community TV production:

1. Community television is free! Ok, you probably already knew that, but did you consider the opportunities available to your nonprofit or community-focused program? We were able to get valuable video production, a 10-minute public service announcement for on-air viewing, and a professional interview for key committee members to promote the upcoming conference. The value of this is well over $10,000; and as a community-focused nonprofit, the more our client is able to save in promotional costs, the more they are able to give back to their community.

 

1. Think beyond the studio. We left the studio with a DVD of a 12-minute show, which we can now edit and upload to online marketing channels such as YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest; and we can include clips in email marketing, blog posts, website feeds, and more. The opportunities are limitless!

 

1. A promotional video provides your organization with a compelling way to share your story with the masses. You can frame the story for the particular audience you are trying to reach, and then you can share the video directly with that audience.

 

1. With video optimization (SEO for video) tactics, you can position your video(s) to appear in search engine results for prospective donors, sponsors, and registrants.

 

Here’s a sneak peak at our video shoot for NH Conference on Aging. To view the finished product when it is launched, subscribe to our YouTube channel or become a fan on Facebook.