New feature for campaigns: Call to Action

A lot of political and social campaigns use YouTube to drive supporters to take action. Video is compelling tool for a nonprofit to demonstrate need, for a political campaign to motivate followers, or for an activist to generate grassroots support for a cause. Generating momentum on youtube.com is a key ingredient in modern campaigns, but in a world where every click counts, the real goal is to get people back to your website where they can learn more and take a specific action to further the cause.

Enter YouTube's new Call-to-Action feature. This in-video overlay that pops up a few seconds into a video on youtube.com can be customized to fit a campaign's messaging, and can link off to any URL that a campaign chooses. Learn more in this video:



The Call to Action feature is free for all nonprofits on YouTube, and it's a "bonus feature" for anyone else who runs a Promoted Videos campaign on YouTube. Promoted Videos is sort of like AdWords for YouTube - you bid on keywords relevant to your content, and your video may show up in a featured slot against search results and other pages on youtube.com.

Already, '09 campaigns are using Promoted Videos and Call to Action extensively. Democrat Jon Corzine is using the feature for his re-election campaign in New Jersey, as is Republican Bob McDonnell in his gubernatorial contest in Virginia. However, McDonnell's competition must be bidding a bit higher on YouTube keywords... when you search for "Bob McDonnell" on YouTube, the Promoted Video you see is one from his challenger, Creigh Deeds.