Online video and the art of storytelling

UPDATE: Please also see this example of our 37 Signals uses simple customer testimonial videos to tell its (and their) stories…

When then-candidate Barack Obama delivered his A More Perfect Union speech on race in March 2008 — it was viewed on YouTube by more than 6 million people.

Talk about by-passing the so-called “mainstream” media.

The fact is, online video is becoming one of the most powerful communications media in the world.  Take a look at these key findings from comScore’s August 2009 Video Metrix report:

• More than 161 million viewers watched an average of 157 videos per viewer during the month of August.
• 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
• 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

So, you work at a small business or non-profit.  You don’t have the resources of Barack Obama or a large corporation.  Can you use online video successfully, too?

Absolutely.  Because, while many different people and organizations are posting and watching many different types of video content — we find (for our clients) that online video is a wonderful tool for doing one of the things that works best online:  storytelling.

Earlier this year, we posted our video interview with Bryan Quigley of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform — an organization that is using online video effectively to tell the stories of real-life victims of lawsuit abuse.

In his great new book, Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk explains how he has used online video to showcase his raw, energetic personality to build his father’s small liquor store into the multi- multi-million dollar online phenomenon WineLibrary TV.

This past week at the Public Relations Society of American 2009 International Conference, we heard from a variety of speakers who presented case studies on their effective use of inexpensive online video:

• Luann Lawrence, vice president for university advancement at Oregon State University, described how the university is using user-generated videos from students and alumni as part of their successful “Powered by Orange” online campaign.
• Lt. Col. Gerald Ostlund, webmaster and chief, OCAR, at the U.S. Army Reserve, described how his team’s weapon of choice is the Flip Cam — telling the stories of their soldiers through simple, unpolished videos such as these.

As you can see, it doesn’t take expensive cameras, lighting equipment and a makeup artist to produce great video content.  All it takes is a Flip Cam, or an iPhone camera, or whatever video camera you have  — and good content.

As Lt. Col. Gerald Ostlund said during his PRSA presentation:

“There is a place for polished video, but it isn’t in social media.”

We couldn’t agree more.  We have a number of current and potential clients who worry too much about camera angles and lighting.  It’s like the traditional PR flak who is still focused on the font and margins of his press release.

What matters is the content, plain and simple.  So how can you tell your story, or the stories of your members, customers or fans?

• If you’re a local Chamber of Commerce, how about doing quick, 30-second videos of your local member business owners at your events, allowing them to tell their stories, promote their businesses, and plug the Chamber in the process?
• Running a political campaign?  Empower your supporters by asking them to submit their own user-generated videos telling everyone why they support you.  Trust me — it will be much more compelling than your candidate telling the world how wonderful he/she is.
• A local non-profit?  Take your camera around (to those willing to do it) and get video of the people served by your organization, telling their stories and showing your current and potential donors exactly why their contributions are so vital.

Your blog, your Facebook page, your YouTube account — whatever online tools you use — are the best storytelling media ever developed.

But, like with everything else, the tools don’t make the story — the storytellers do.