CRESA Content Package
Team Swan has compiled research on different media content ranging from video, podcasts, websites, infographics and text-based content and analyzed these different mediums to determine the most effective way for CRESA to market itself to the residents in Clark County and the surrounding communities. Exploring the research reveals several different ingredients that are needed when crafting excellent online content. The following is a concise overview of research on different types of content and how they communicate their messages to the audience. The team has included quantifiable results in number of views, length of video or text document, and we’ve examined the different types of content based on our shared experiences as media consumers and creators. We’ve grouped the content into podcasts and video, web and text based content.
Podcasts and Video
For the video content we surveyed a number of different examples, spanning from six minute long videos with over three million views to online subscription based tutorials that span several hours of content.
With regards to video, we found by and large that the videos that were shorter than six minutes garnered the most views. In general, the informational videos that were designed to teach or inform performed better when they were shorter. From our research, the Youtube comments on the videos and our experiences as viewers we deduced that brevity is key. Particularly for tutorials on Youtube, Lynda.com or Alison, effective videos in general stayed below six minutes.
Pacing and rhythm were also incredibly important when dealing with video tutorials and educational/informational films. Videos that were too long generally struggled to maintain viewer interest over time, but at the same time shorter videos sometimes did not allow enough time for the viewer to process the information being given. The sweet spot seems to be between two to four minutes. The message needed to be concise, like the Run Hide Fight video, while also being clear with what it is trying to teach you.
Most significantly, our research showed us that the length needs to match the message. A short video should have a simple message, a long video needs to have a message that warrants its length. In essence, a video that is long needs to earn its length. If the message cannot be communicated in fewer than twenty minutes, make the video twenty minutes and no more. If the message can be boiled down into a minute and a half, make sure you boil it.
Podcasts represent an interesting medium between the brevity of videos on the internet and the length of a full news article or an hour long television special. Podcasts are in general quite long compared to video, the most popular range between 20 minutes to an hour.
The podcast gives a terrific example of length, while still having excellent quality. If there is a large body of content that needs to be presented, frequently a podcast is a good way to do it, instead of a wall of text or an extremely long video.
• Podcasts: 99 Percent Invisible and This American Life // Audio
http://bitly.com/15vTBnA
http://bit.ly/1jzxiBL
Sampled here are two different podcasts about two vastly different subjects, 99 percent invisible is about design, while This American Life is more news oriented. This American life is also a radio program broadcasted by NPR. The podcasts are long in length, but do a great job of communicating complex ideas over that time. In our view, the podcasts earn their length. Doubly effective, the podcasts can be listed to while doing other activities, like driving, folding laundry, or cleaning dishes. Podcasts allow a listener to focus on an interesting topic while doing something else over a long period of time.
• UNESCO: Education for disaster preparedness // Audio/Visual
http://bit.ly/1n0E0E6
UNESCO’s video is about education and engagement, UNESCO goes beyond naming places world heritage sites, they are about educating the world.
UNESCO created a simple video advocating for education preparedness in schools. Their video, which is only 3 minutes in length, relies heavily on infographics and simple animation to convey their message. This is the perfect length as it is engaging and can keep the audience’s attention for the entirety. The graphics are professional, yet playful in nature; this shows that they are trying to reach a wide audience. The video has a call to action at the end, which levels up the engagement.
• Videoinfographics.com Analysis // Web/Text/Video
www.videoinfographics.com/
This website uses graphics and video to create informational content to be viewed in a pictorial format
Video infographics.com is a website that features user created motion infographics in video format. The topics are wide ranging, as are the moods and narrative styles of the videos. Video infographics are excellent at explaining concepts in an easy to grasp way that is easy to remember. This website is an excellent resource to find examples of many different methods of transmitting information through video audio and text.
• Lynda.com Analysis // Web/Video
http://bit.ly/1uaBjR3
Lynda is an online training website
Lynda.com uses professional quality video and exercise files for training in several different subjects. Among these are marketing, business, multimedia authoring, and IT. The training is broken up into progressing chapters, which are further broken up into one to twelve minute videos. A user needs to pay for a basic membership to view the videos and a premium membership to have access to the project files. Lynda.com also offers their content in three other languages and includes subtitles for the hearing impaired. It offers multiple video quality settings that can be changed based on a users internet connection speed. One thing that could be improved with the site would be to make the project files available in the standard account. After a user has completed a course, they are able to print out a completion certificate. It does not utilize testing.
• Introducing 911 to the Community
http://bit.ly/1zBrhu3
Introducing 911 to the Community is a video from Kent, Washington. The title is self-explanatory. What stands out about this video is that it has a great overall style and is very informative. Also this video exhibits great b-roll clips. Something to take note of is the amount of views this video has, 19,736. One of the requests was to generate a high level of views. This video is just under 20 minutes and is portrayed in the narrative format.
• How Emergency Services are Dispatched
http://bit.ly/1DfExra
How Emergency Services are Dispatched is very similar to the first video in regards to content. It was made by an Emergency Service Center in Georgia. This video also has a great overall style and is very informative.
Creating a video explaining what CRESA is seems like feasible project at this point. Some challenges that that exist with making a video about Emergency Management or What an Emergency Operations Center does are locating footage, getting permission, creative commons, etc.
• Alison // Audio-visual/Web/Text
http://alison.com/
This is Alison, a web based tutorial site with 600 categories to chose from and learn at your pace.
A free online course website with 600 categories that vary from accounting to plumbing with each course being certified from the world’s top publishers. Each course is to enable you, wherever you are in the world, to learn and get certified at your own pace, using their free, interactive, multimedia. Taking a closer look at one of the courses (Adobe After Effects), I noticed that the length was between two to three hours. The two to three hour course, was broken down into two different sections. The first section was 20 individual three to four minute video’s that explained a different section of the course, which was not interactive, unless you had the program open. While the video’s are informative, at times they could be to short. The second section was 50 question multiple choice test that had a passing grade of 75%. After you complete the course you have the choice to download your learner record or you can order a certificate.
Web and Text
Web sources, were often presented with walls of text that require patience to read and very little use of graphics or images. The sources that do use visuals there seemed to be disconnect between the two. Web and text sources that are successful use a combination of visual and text to tell a story and keep the audience involved. Text by itself is effective in books, but in magazines, web pages, billboards or even junk mail, images are included.
Taking this into account, it makes sense that utilizing the beautiful photos, for example the ones on the CRESA Flickr, to emphasize the text. The following examples are a range of sources that include both graphics and text to communicate ideas.
• CDC- Disasters Page // Web/Text
http://1.usa.gov/1crf6bx
The CDC: Emergency section features preparedness information for each natural disaster.
The CDC website has a clean layout that provides information for different emergency situations. Each emergency has its own page with information in the form of text, few pictures and links to other sources. One of the key aspects that is the interaction that takes place within the website. The user is free to explore each emergency with their own agenda and and timeline. The information is presented in long lists or paragraphs and the pictures are used at the top of the page to show the emergency that is being taught. There is very little interaction between the text and images creating a separation of the information. The few uses of infographics that are used to display preparedness were small and featured in the corner of the web page.
• FEMA’s Make A Plan // Text/Audio/Visual/Web
http://1.usa.gov/1eigarV
This section of FEMA’s site covers individual preparedness in the event of a disaster.
Ready.gov may be a website with an incredibly daunting wall of text, however it does cover every element of disaster preparedness. This includes what one should buy and put in an emergency kit for every situation, where one should hide, or how one should act for every disaster. The website also has a custom preparedness plan for people living on reservations, people with disabilities, and seniors. Basic information is included in most if not all commonly spoken languages in the United States. They do have some videos included on the main pages for each section (seniors, college students, etc) and each video has a sign language interpreter, although subtitles would be just as effective. However, the minute detail included on FEMA's site does make it hard to find pertinent information and is not meant to be read through swiftly. Unless someone was purposely looking for this information the site would not draw most people in.
• Cracked // Web/Text/Visual
http://bit.ly/1Ktbz7p
Cracked is a informative website that delivers news in the form of lists. There is use of text and images that work together. The lists are interactive in that they draw people in and get them involved. Similar to Buzzfeed, cracked uses numbered lists, along with images, to motivate their users to finish reading the articles.
Recommendations:
After extensive research on a wide variety of mediums, the team’s recommendation for CRESA is for a comprehensive content package. Using our diverse talents and wide variety of skills, we will create a large and diverse body of content for CRESA to use to market themselves to the half million Clark County residents that CRESA represents. The content will range from web-based list-articles to videos, podcasts, and graphics to share on twitter and Facebook. Ultimately our goal for CRESA is to allow them to flood the social media spaces with excellent content, both on twitter and Facebook and their website, and create a large following for the organization.
We have listed some examples of the various types of content that would best market and display the purpose CRESA to the community of Clark County, as well as different recommendations for CRESA to improve already existing content, social media, and web sites.
Videos:
Our recommendations for video are twofold. Primarily, we think a “What is CRESA” video be a great thing to have, however we would need to approach it with an angle that would be interesting to the viewers. We know this is possible given our research, many of the videos we examined are not generally “interesting” in the same way a music video or a documentary is; that however has not stopped them from getting millions of views.
Secondly, the most effective way to communicate a more “boring” video is to follow a narrative, whether that means tracking with a character, an event, or even something as simple answering a question. We suggest creating multiple short videos that emphasize what CRESA is, who it helps, and how the citizens of Clark County can help themselves in the event of a CRESA-worthy.
Podcasts:
Podcasts occupy a niche between text and video that could be greatly used for CRESA’s advantage. Audio podcasts are perfect for topics that would make a video too long or complex, but would also create a wall of text that would be undesirable to read. Therefore, if a topic is long and complex, but easily explained verbally, a podcast would be perfect.
We recommend that several types of podcast be recorded and placed on SoundCloud over the course of several months covering the more complex topics for Emergency Management. Additionally, audio podcasts are optimal because they are accessible for blind users, who might not be able to receive content via video or text.
Graphics and text:
Sleek graphics with informative text that is engaging and informative. The public should be able to read and memorize the information that is presented. An aesthetic design will convey the professionalism that CRESA represents.
Web and Social Media:
Create effective public relations strategy in social media.
Use Flickr photos, to show and engage the public. Use Facebook as a platform to convey more detailed ideas. Use twitter for quick announcements and alerts. Purge their Youtube page of unnecessary videos that are not relevant. Fix their links which connect to the wrong pages. Such as their Google+ linking to their blogspot. Tweaking of the CRESA website, to create more streamlined experience, with more photos particularly within the slideshow.
Comparative Analysis