September 11, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Michael Hoffman, of See3 Communications, in Chicago, is using his See What’s Out There blog to spread the word about a new feature YouTube has created for charities in its YouTube Nonprofit Program.
Nonprofit video makers can currently use the “annotations” feature in YouTube to create a written message that can be embedded into their video. Links to other Web pages can be included in the message, but they have — until now — been limited to links that are part of the YouTube site.
As Mr. Hoffman notes, charities in the company’s nonprofit program can now embed links to pages on their own or another Web site of their choosing into their YouTube videos.
“Make no mistake, this is a game-changer,” Mr. Hoffman writes. Charities can have “Donate Now” or “Sign the Petition” buttons in their videos that, when clicked, take people back to those pages on the groups’ own Web sites.
“With this new feature, YouTube can become a center for creating effective calls to action and engagement,” writes Mr. Hoffman.
To illustrate how the new feature works, Mr. Hoffman created his own video. You can watch it below.
