As citizen journalism continues to gain momentum during the change in the print landscape moving online, new platforms continue to take shape. One such channel, CNN’s iReport, has seen a significant impact on how we view our news. This was truly evident during January’s earthquake in Haiti as users streamed content from the epicenter in Port-au-Prince, showing the devastation and need for help.
As WordWrite continues to explore new and innovative social media channels, in March we researched a new tool in citizen journalism: YouTube Direct. This is an open source tool for viewers to submit their own news videos to editorial sites such as NPR.com, The Huffington Post and Politico, or company Web sites.
According to its Web site, YouTube Direct “allows you to embed the upload functionality of YouTube directly into your own site, enabling your organization to request, review, and re-broadcast user-submitted videos with ease. News organizations can ask for citizen reporting; nonprofits can call-out for support videos around social campaigns; businesses can ask users to submit promotional videos about your brand. With YouTube Direct, the opportunities to connect directly with the YouTube community are endless.”
Video is a huge component of the online world, enhancing content with real-life images and sounds and making viewers feel as if they are really there. From a public relations standpoint, this would be a great tool. Perhaps we could solicit ourselves by having organizations and people we’ve worked with upload testimonials of their time with WordWrite and the value it brought to their organization. We could also recommend YouTube Direct to our clients in that their customers can upload video to the site discussing their experience with the service or product. It is a way to bring real credibility to one’s site.
Although we haven’t used YouTube Direct yet, it is definitely a possibility for the future. At WordWrite, we like to test the waters on things before presenting them to our clients. This tool would be great to start with for our agency to tell our story – digitally. From there, the possibilities are endless in the world of user-submitted video.
Social media tool of the month is a regular feature on the WordWrite Storytelling Blog that appears at the end of each month.
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Deanna Ferrari is an account executive for WordWrite Communications
