NPI New Tools Spotlight: Start Re-imagining Video, by trying Web Video

Web video quickly has become a staple feature of the Democratic presidential campaigns, but it’s easy enough for all progressive campaigns and organizations to use. You just need to get past the threshold and try it.

To help you get there, the New Politics Institute is releasing a new practical memo that takes progressives through the process of creating web videos, from what you need to buy to how best to use video in politics.

The memo was written by Dan Manatt, the founder and executive producer of PoliticsTV.com, who has been immersed in the world of web video since the late 1990s. He starts by listing the 10 top ways that your campaign or organization should use web video in campaigns, based on proven methods that others have pioneered.

Manatt then walks through the basic steps to get you to venture into this web video world. These include a sidebar on 5 different packages of equipment that range from the low-end “Volunteer Package” that costs a total of $25 to the top-shelf “Senate Package” that will run you about $10,000.

If reading is not your thing, you can watch a web video of a 10-minute talk that Manatt gave on this topic at last summer’s kick-off event for the 2007 New Tools Campaign.

If you feel that you do know a lot about web video, then forward this to someone who does not. The more progressives creating and sending viral videos this cycle, the better. Help spread the word. Thanks.

Peter Leyden