Video sharing websites

Using video is a fantastic way of communicating your messages and reaching out to your (potential) supporters.

Video-sharing websites, have become massively popular over recent years. Indeed, such is the popularity of YouTube that it has become the second most popular search engine on the internet, after Google. This means that people searching for information on the internet will first use Google to search the entire net, and next they’re likely to use YouTube, to search just that one site!

So a presence on YouTube, can be very useful if you have a campaign to promote.

Of course, YouTube is not the only video-sharing website, or even necessarily the best. But it does currently dominate the video-sharing marketplace.

You can also create your own channels on YouTube, free of charge. What this allows you to do is post up videos that relate to your campaign all in one place. You can also personalize the page with your logo and other information about your campaign, including links back to your website, or any social networking tools you use.

Contact the Prime Minister using YouTube!

You can now use YouTube to contact the Prime Minister. All you need to do is post upload your video here.

UK Uncut

UK Uncut was set up in 2010 after George Osborne announced cuts to public funding. Their website acts a forum for anyone wishing to campaign against the cuts, for example to learn when and where other demonstrations are taking place. Their gallery is a great space to share, and to see photos of many demonstrations or stunts taking place across the UK.

Example of a campaign using video-sharing site

Friends of the Earth have a YouTube channel.

One of the videos they have posted is part of their ongoing campaign against various aspects of Tesco’s practices. It’s a pastiche of a Tesco TV, and therefore a video was the natural medium to use.

It communicates it’s message, about how the dominance of large supermarkets can potentially decimate local businesses, with humour, satire, and is arguably more memorable than if they set out this campaign message in text form.

Of course, Friends of the Earth might have a much larger budget than you to produce a sophisticated video. But many campaigners do post up interesting low or no-budget videos such as this one about SOCPA.

You can also ‘embed’ online videos on to your own website, so that people who visit your website can look at your videos directly from your website, rather than being redirected to the video-sharing site where you posted it. It might sound complicated but is quite simple. The video-sharing website you use should tell you how to do this.