Web video as a political force began in earnest with the Macaca video in August/September of 2006. In less than a year, it has gone from a curiosity to an essential tool of 21st century politics – thanks to cheap digital video technology and the rise of YouTube.

Web video can help you if you use it correctly, but if definitely will hurt you if you don’t use it at all. Rudy Giuliani has largely ignored the medium, such that a video search for Giuliani videos on YouTube yields dozens of videos attacking him. By contrast, Ron Paul, who has embraced the medium, has dozens of positive videos by his campaign and by supporters. So ignore Web video at your peril – if you don’t use it, you can rest assured your opponents will.

But remember also that video cameras are everywhere – DV cameras, security cameras, web cameras, cell phones, etc. Digital technology means $100,000 cameras and editing suites now cost $5,000 or less – making it more accessible and ubiquitous. YouTube and other video publishing accounts are free – giving anyone free access to a worldwide audience for $0. For better or worse, candidates and other political leaders must assume they are being taped 24/7 by their opponents if not the average Joe. Web video is now an inescapable fact of political life.

So how do you get started in this brave new medium? How do you begin to integrate Web video into what you already do in politics? This memo helps get you thinking about the kinds of things that Web video is well suited for and being used for already. We give you a top 10 cheat sheet of ideas that have been boiled down from a previous NPI video report (a 20 minute highly produced Web video) that I helped create called “Political Web video World.”

Then the memo goes through the basics of how you can get started in very practical terms, including explaining different packages of cameras and tools you need to buy. This is a written version of a talk I recently gave at the NPI event “The Exploding World of Political Web video.” Like with viral video, feel free to send this around.

 

Download the PDF version if you want text and visual graphics, or click on full report for text only.