Choose Your Own Issue-Based Adventure on YouTube

Recently, we've seen a spike in the number of nonprofit organizations using YouTube's social features, like annotations, to drive interest and interaction with their causes. A few months ago, the Ad Council launched an extremely creative campaign called "Two-Sided Stories," which leveraged YouTube annotations to guide citizens through choose-your-own-adventure scenarios about the importance of online privacy. See an example here:



And just this week, noting the knife crime problems in the United Kingdom, droptheweapons.org released this interesting annotations-based "adventure" about the ramifications of carrying or using a knife:



Judging by the number of views these videos have received, these organizations are on the right track. A more interactive approach might be the best way to go when trying to raise the volume on important issues, especially when you're targeting a teenage demographic. Want to use annotations in your next video? Learn how here.