Over the past few years, social media and YouTube have become increasingly important in political campaigns. Obama got the ball rolling during the last United States Presidential election and politicians around the world have followed suit. Today YouTube announced that they are making online campaigning easier for politicians with YouTube and Google Campaign Toolkits.
YouTube describes Campaign Toolkits on their blog:
“We want to do our part to make sure candidates and campaigns have the tools to stay close to voters, who now expect to hear and see much more from their elected officials than ever before. So today, we’re launching YouTube’s You Choose 2010 Campaign Toolkit and a new and improved Google Campaign Toolkit. Both help candidates make their organizations more effective and deliver their messages more directly.”
Any federal or state political candidate can apply for a Politician channel on YouTube. With Politician channels, candidates have the ability to brand their channels, upload longer video files, and customize video thumbnails, similar to the perks of YouTube’s Partner Program. Politicians can also take advantage of Google Moderator to engage with constituents directly from their channel, as well as Google Insight, to measure channel performance.
Politicians also have the option to opt-in for certain paid campaign tools. Paid campaign tools include promoted videos; Call-to-Action Overlays on YouTube videos, linking directly to fundraising pages, candidate websites or email sign-up forms; and in-stream ads during professional online programming on YouTube and its partner sites.
YouTube has already been used as a tool to revolutionize the way that the political process works. With You Choose 2010 Campaign Tools, YouTube is taking political campaigning to the next level. How do you think these campaign tools will effect future elections?
