How To Use Audiovisual In Your Nonprofit

The Beancast team discusses best practices for audiovisual in nonprofits. They cover topics such as compelling storylines, clear calls to action, visual and audio quality, mobile-friendly formats, and making content shareable. They also mention Mighty Calls' action steps, which include determining goals, targeting specific audiences, storytelling basics, and paying attention to visuals. They emphasize the importance of engaging and entertaining listeners, using emotional appeals, and reminding supporters of the impact they're making. They conclude by thanking listeners and promising to return next week. Hi, guys, and welcome back to the second ever Beancast. Today, I am joined with Lucy. Hi. And I am Makeda. I'm going to begin by introducing you to our team and what we do. And then we're going to jump into today's topic. So first of all, I'm just going to introduce to you John Hall. He's not on our podcast today, but he is the CEO and head of publication. We have Grace Hall, and she is our research director. I am the marketing and advisor for all publication, whether that's media, audio, visual, writing, anything like that. And then Caleb Langley is our graphic designer and one of our briefs, actually. And then Lucy Bain, who is on the podcast today, she is our creative director. So we're going to go ahead and just jump right into this. Today's topic is best practices for audiovisual in nonprofits. So Lucy, do you really have any information on this? Or what do you have to say for audiovisual and what that has to do with nonprofits exactly? Yeah, so for best practices of audiovisual in nonprofits, according to MotionQ, they gave five best practices for this. And the first is compelling storyline. So what a compelling storyline, the aspects of that are just identifying a central message, also knowing your audience and using emotional appeals. All of those things contribute to creating a good, compelling storyline. So that's the first. The second is having a clear call to action. And with this, it just means to have a specific and clear action and highlighting the importance of that viewer's contribution. So making it clear and simple to understand, and also why it is important that they take that call to action. And the way to do this is just creating a sense of urgency or an emphasis on its impact. And then the third is visual and audio quality. So making sure that when using audiovisual that it is good audio quality and that it's visually engaging content, and that it's just well-structured and clean. And then fourthly is having mobile-friendly format. And this can just be as simple as having good subtitles and captions, just easy to understand, kind of similar to the third, just being clear and well-structured. And then fifth and lastly is making it shareable. And so the best way to do this, honestly, is just using social media platforms. It is such a widespread form of communication and really helps just share audiovisual content. So social media is one of the big ones. And just using good, engaging thumbnails and titles to really capture a watcher or a listener. So yeah, that's what MotionQ had to say about best practices for audiovisual. What about you, Makeda, anything you found? Yeah, so Mighty Calls had four different action steps to take. Their first one is to determine your goals. They gave four different bullet points under this, which can be through organizational videos, fundraising videos, testimonial videos, and explainer videos. And as we know, in the world of podcasting and audio, nowadays you can also add videos. And so that's something to be aware of and really take advantage of. Number two is to film for a target audience. So just really understanding who you're reaching or maybe who you're not reaching and who or what you need to change in order to reach that group that isn't currently being reached. Some of those things they suggested could be donor demographics, engagement history, and marketing preferences. Number three is to keep the basics of storytelling in mind. Just to find a compelling hero, introduce the problem, and propose a solution just when talking about your nonprofit and how it relates to the people that are giving especially. And then number four is to pay attention to visuals, which like I said, today now you can add videos and it's really important like Lucy mentioned earlier to just pay attention to what your design looks like, the thumbnail, just making something that users and in this case, people who are donating that are going to want to tap on it and just learn more. Something that is really gonna catch the eye. And then I'm just gonna jump right into ways that like I've kind of dipped my toes into is like the area of nonprofits and what that has to do with audio visual. So the first thing is to, it helps grow awareness or advertising. It's like I said, really important to be aware of what medias are most common or what your audience is drawn to. And so if that is podcasts, then it is very important to be on top of that. And even if it's not, maybe you're going to reach an audience that you don't have yet by doing that. And also more than that, your podcast can help to promote your business, but also keeping things fun and informative. I think too, the one thing about podcasts nowadays is it helps you like really get to know and understand people or their mission more than just like reading an Instagram post or a blog post. I even know with like people I follow on social media, you get to know them best through, I think a podcast, even more than like sitting down and watching one of their YouTube videos, just because you get to hear more of like a story. And when you're listening to a podcast, that's what you're wanting. If you're watching a video, you're not really going for that sit down story or listen with a podcast. That's what you're wanting and you're like hoping for. And then when the last points would just be to remind listeners of what their support goes towards. So they feel like they are a part of the nonprofit and that they themselves are making an impact on their community and whatever their money is going towards. So whether that's just giving them behind the scenes information and podcasts or taking them along on what it really looks like to run this or a particular nonprofit. But yeah, those would be the big things. And yeah, circling back to just, it really helps grow awareness and reaches a target audience or helps you reach a new target audience. But yeah, I'm gonna hand it back over to Lucy and she'll finish this up. Yeah, I just wanted to touch on, I really liked what you said about keeping it fun and entertaining. Like I know when I'm listening to a podcast, I'm watching a blog, like I'm there to learn and I'm there to be informed, yes. But I'm also there to be entertained. It's a different form of receiving information. And I think with it, it just comes a desire to be, to feel like you're engaging with the speaker. And yeah, so I feel like that's something that a lot of people tend to lose sight of when thinking of like audiovisual and they like forget that it is a creative thing. And it's something that you do need to be creative with if you want to have an audience and have an audience actually care what you have to say. And interact. And interact, yeah. Which is so important for nonprofits because you're really trying, like I mentioned before, you're trying to use emotional appeal to get your audience to not only care, but care enough to do something. And that, yeah, you have to be creative with audiovisual if you're gonna get any results with that. And as a nonprofit, like we depend on our viewers and on our listeners. Without them, we wouldn't have any support at all. Yeah. So yeah, it can definitely be a very powerful thing. And it's really interesting to see how it's such a powerful thing. And there are ways that you can utilize it that will yield results. So definitely very useful for many aspects of life, but mainly nonprofits for sure. And it's definitely been something useful and beneficial for us. So yeah, with that, just to close, just wanted to say thank you guys for listening to us this week and we'll be back next week. So stay tuned. Thanks. Bye. Bye.