Ok. Russ has set me a challenge to see if I can get a William Shatner video into a Friday mail. Easy. This week’s theme is about the use of YouTube as a channel for communicating with key audiences. In a testament to films I thought we would feature the good, the bad and the ugly.
Enjoy
The good
BarackObamadotcom as a URL. Need I say more?
Intelligent use of multiple channels in a clever and more importantly, integrated way. 170,958 subscribers. 24,813 friends. Compare this to Gordon Brown’s efforts (see below)
He just oooozes cool.
And more than that, hope.
The bad
Star Trek originally only ran for 3 series, but in that time managed to address and debate a range of contentious issues in a way that have had a hugely beneficial impact. The use of human beings interacting with alien species allowed Star Trek to cover and debate homosexuality, interracial relations, authoritarianism, racism, economics, human rights, feminism and the role of technology. Needless to say, it made William Shatner (the actor who played James Tiberius Kirk, the captain of the USS Enterprise) a global legend.
And his legendary status remains to this day, with YouTube full of ridiculous short clips and excerpts of him doing everyday things. Like this one. I mean, who want to see a man showing off his new BBQ smoker? I mean, really? But boy, he sure can eat a lot of pork…(Russ wanted me to mention something about the resultant Klingons, but I thought that was going too far…)
The ugly
Gordon Brown has had a torrid time of late, so in an attempt to leverage the goodwill that Barack Obama has generated through his uber-modern use of social media, he has taken to the use of YouTube in a less formal way to air contentious issues. Unfortunately his gawky, awkward and uncomfortable excerpts have resulted in him being parodied and ridiculed by both the opposition and his own party. This wasn’t helped when he created an ‘Ask The PM’ tool which allowed users to submit a question and users to vote on which one they thought was the best, which he would then answer.
Unsurprisingly “why don’t you resign” was the standout winner…
…even more unsurprisingly, the PM removed this question and refused to answer it