Video has been a core part of the Obama campaign strategy . According to Maxwell Harper, Obama's video strategist during the 2008 campaign, "Video is an investment and if you think about it really strategically it'll pay for itself through the impact it has."
In her recent blog post , Senator Kate Lundy states that with such positive experiences in mind, she was curious to explore the new medium herself. She describes the thought process that she and her team went through to start her online video presence and how Vquence helped her team become self-proficient with vodcasting.
In June, after a short period of planning, Vquence proceeded to set up Senator Lundy's YouTube and Vimeo channels and produced the first three vodcasts . These vodcasts alone have attracted more than 1000 views.
However, once started, Senator Lundy and her team were incessantly at work to produce more video as part of developing new strategies of communicating with her constituency. Her Public Sphere events are a historic move toward more citizen participation in government decisions and have created 40 video recordings of speeches that were all uploaded to her video channels, too. It is instructive to analyse the interest that those videos created not just during the event, but long after.
Video views after the Public Sphere
The top graph shows the Google Analytics results of the Web page for the Public Sphere. The day of the second Public Sphere event is clearly identifiable by the large spike of views on that day. What is outstanding though is that the videos that were published shortly after the event and that are recordings from the event continued to have views for more than 4 weeks after the event and are still attracting interest.
The key finding of a 28 page report that Vquence delivered at the end of July on the performance of Senator Lundy's video activities is that the video strategy caused people to spend 45% more time on her website than before. The following picture is an extract from the report:
Time Spent on Senator Kate Lundy's Website
When people spend 3 min on the site rather than 1:20 min, a lot more information is exchanged. Some people prefer digesting information in video form rather than text, thus with video available, the website becomes accessible to a lot more people. In addition, Senator Lundy has taken our advice and made videos accessible using subtitles - these have also been shown to increase user attention . Removing all other variables, it is very impressive that the videos caused a 45% increase in time spent on site.
In the meantime, Senator Lundy and her team have started shooting and editing her own videos . For a new vodcast, it is important to experiment with the content and production style and find one that works for you. So, it is great to see Senator Lundy continues to come up with new ideas like her new monthly wrap . After all, a vodcast is an expression of your personality and your communication style, so it takes some experimentation to get it right.
Do give her feedback on what you want to see addressed in her vodcast and whether you like or dislike the way in which it is done. Only by giving feedback and getting engaged will we improve the way in which politicians talk to us - and ultimately the way in which our government deals with us.