The New Politics Institute and film producer Julie Bergman Sender have put together a detailed look at the stories behind several successful viral political videos. What do you need to get your labor of love to spread around the world and shake the pillars of power? What’s better, amateur video, social-media style, or a high-end slick professional product? Overall, what works? The conclusion sums it up:
While amateur or user-generated content is a powerful emerging phenomenon, and with time can be designed to feed the needs of campaigns and organizations, the higher-end, often professionally produced viral content still has an important role to play. This high-end content is where the story is designed as part of a complex communications strategy, and the material is planned to be used in various distribution avenues to intentionally reach a wide audience. The use of celebrity talent and a carefully researched approach to branding a campaign does not have to be done instead of a user-generated content campaign. In fact, the best approach would be to combine both of these tools…
In the end, no matter whether you use amateurs or professionals, with a top-down or bottom-up strategy, you must have compelling content that moves people, and gets them to move the message to others. One thing is certain: No matter what the size of the screen, content is still king.
Joe Bob says, check it out.
– cpd