Here’s a key excerpt:

Nearly a third of adults who use the Internet watch political videos, according to the Pew Research Center. A Pew poll taken during the 2008 campaign found that 18- to 29-year-olds turn to YouTube for elections updates more often than candidate websites or online newspapers.

And a warning:

Consider Dale Peterson, a Republican running for Alabama agriculture commissioner.

Mr. Peterson, a first-time candidate, hired a director of apocalyptic sci-fi films to shoot an online video.

Riding horseback, cradling his Winchester rifle, Mr. Peterson barks out his indignation at the “thugs and criminals” in state government and his “dummy” of an opponent, coming across as both folksy and furious.

The video struck a nerve: It has been viewed online 1.7 million times.

Mr. Peterson was flooded with donations from online fans—but decidedly modest donations. About 70% of the $15,800 he raised in the weeks before the primary came from checks smaller than $100.

In the same period, rival Republican John McMillan quietly raised nearly seven times Mr. Peterson’s total, almost all from donations of $100 or more.

Mr. McMillan won.

Obviously, creative online video can’t be the only weapon in your campaign arsenal. But it should be one of them.

I have no scientific way of estimating crowd sizes, but I have been to dozens of University of Tennessee football games, which always draw in excess of 100,000 fans, and this crowd was much larger than any I’ve seen at Neyland Stadium. Which means the CBS News estimate of 87,000 and other media accounts claiming “tens of thousands” do seem very low.

In any case, since there seems to be an ongoing debate about the numbers, I figured I’d put my footage out there and let others draw their own conclusions.

Relatively small shifts in advertising budgets from TV to online can create huge swings in growth for online video. eMarketer estimates that online video advertising will grow 48 percent in 2010, accelerating from 39 percent growth last year (which was a weak year compared to the 127 percent hypergrowth in 2008).

Read the whole thing here. Need help with online video? I hear this guy’s pretty good.

Just go here and vote for the black dog now. Thanks!

I only wonder why the RSC didn’t brand the video in any way. Why not include a slide at the end with their logo and url so viewers who like the video can access the rest of their good work?

There is not much time to capture viewers. On average, after 30 seconds of video, 35% of the original audience is gone. Why waste 10 or even 5 seconds of your video on a generic introduction? The video needs to jump right into the content and answer two questions for a viewer as soon as possible: “What are we talking about?” and “Why should people care?” The faster you can answer those questions, the longer the viewer will watch the video and therefore, the more successful your video will be.

After reading the post I re-examined the Insights on my personal YouTube videos, and there definitely seems to be a correlation.

Tweet

Old Answer: Have Congress pass laws that further regulate the airline industry.

New Answer: Quickly post a video on YouTube documenting the incident, and watch the airline experience a ton of negative publicity.

Future Answer: Live TV interviews from the overheated plane via Skype.

Isn’t it great how technology once again makes Congress irrelevant?