I should be finishing our taxes, but I need a break, so here are some comments on the use of YouTube in the BC election.
YouTube as a place to find an audience is a great idea. My four year old watches a lot to Evan Tube HD on YouTube, a channel that has 116,783,701 views in about a year. My 12 year old watches a lot of Chuggaconroy, a guy who posts videos of him playing video games. I do not get it, but it is wildly popular. I point these out to show that YouTube is not rocket science and simple content can get a lot of views.
The BC Liberals are making use of former TV news anchor Pamela Martin to host their daily "On the campaign trail videos". Obviously a lot of money is being spent to create these videos. The content is professional but no one is watching.
Here is the video about day 9 on the campaign trail - as of right now it has 103 views. This video has been up for five days and effectively no one is watching it. I think the real question is why would anyone watch it?
I admit I do not get the world of Let's Plays on YouTube which means I would never watch them, but I am a political geek and I can not get interested in these BC Liberal videos. A lot of resources are being wasted on something that is not reaching any voters. But it is not only the Liberals that are failing to connect on YouTube.
On the same day the NDP posted a video on their Poverty and Inequality Announcement policy. It has only been viewed 212 times. Once again effectively no one has watched.
Neither party will allow any comments online for their videos which defeats at least some of the point of making use of social media to release your information. I know why they will not allow comments but they really need to think about why they are using YouTube at all if no one watches and they will not allow public comments.
The Green Party and the Conservatives are also not doing well with YouTube videos, though neither one is trying very hard.
To give you an idea of how bad 103 and 212 views are, consider that in five days a video my boys took in a cave on Mount Doug got 75 views and a slideshow video I created about 19th century naval ships in Esquimalt to learn how to use the YouTube video editor managed 136 views.
The major political parties have failed in their YouTube use. They are not reaching people. Even the funny NDP April Fool's video Adrian Dix: Risky in a 90s kind of way has only been viewed 38,974 times - if you have not seen it, it is worth watching.
Then we jump to former BC Conservative candidate Mischa Popoff and his rant about being bullied in politics. This video has been watched by more than 13,000 people in the first 24 hours. It is the video that has become most viral in this election. So why is his video popular? Not because of his ranting comment but because it is an off the wall amateur video with an animal being rather odd.
He is allowing comments on his videos, but then I doubt anyone commenting is going to make as outrageous statements as Mischa Popoff has in the past.
I think his video is the only that will have any impact on the election but I suspect at best the video might gain Mischa a few votes. No one in politics understands YouTube and are wasting time and money on it when they should be talking to voters on the streets and in their homes.
No comments:
Post a Comment