so this is mass communication?

Everyone knows that YouTube is a great way to try your chances at becoming an Internet superstar. But what about using YouTube locally to engage your publics in your own community for your PR campaign?

I really started to think about this last semester when studentLizzie Azzolino wrote a proposal for a YouTube contest, using the Georgia drought as her client topic. While Lizzie’s proposal was just for a class assignment, I imagine that had the State of Georgia actually employed it as a part of their water conservation campaign they might have gotten some really good gems like this home-made PSA.

When I saw that UGA’s Bateman PR campaign team had a similar YouTube “show down” locally as a part of their campaign to get adolescences to wear seat belts, I was again struck by how you can use YouTube locally. The campaign team went to local schools, turned over cameras to two classes then let them film their own PSA. The campaign team edited them together and the “show down” was born. The 6th graders PSA was pitted against the 7th graders PSA. Locally, this video channel has become quite a hit and computers across Athens are going to the site to watch their favorite video to try to get the most hits so their team will win a party. The newspaper article alone generated more than 150 click-throughs to one of the videos.

If you haven’t seen the videos yet, take a look. The first one is here.

And the other here.

To me, this is what social media is all about. It’s social. It’s about engaging your public (no better way to get your publics to really invest in your message than a video contest). And really, what most people fail to think about, is that it can be quite successful when it’s done locally. Mixing these social media tactics with good old fashioned PR techniques of media relations & relationship building can help you get the message resonance you want.

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