Acronym

Lots of great tips and ideas shared for creating fun, attractive, and useful videos in Tuesday's Learning Lab "It's a YouTube World: Using Video for Communication," presented by Jeff Lenard, VP of communications at National Association of Convenience Stores and Wendy Mann, CAE, director of communications at the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. Here are three of them:

1. When you get a camera, get one that films in high definition, even if you don't plan to show it in HD. At the very least, consider the quality for archival purposes.
2. Don't overscript. Get answers and testimonials from video subjects from the heart, not the head.
3. Use video to communicate key advocacy or consumer-related questions. Film your board chair or an industry expert answering a common question about your industry and send it to reporters and media outlets. It'll be more likely to resonate than a long article or research report.

The third idea comes from Lenard at NACS. Below is a screen grab of the NACS "So Who Owns All the Gas Stations?" series. The videos aren't embeddable, unfortunately, so just click the image to check them out.