Blackbaud K-12 User Conference Breakout Session The Cold Never Bothered You Anyway - Ryan Vemmer

2. THE COLD
NEVER
BOTHERED YOU
ANYWAY:
Presenter:
Ryan Vemmer,
Producer for Digital Media
Moses Brown School,
Providence, RI

3. OR:
SCHOOL IS
CLOSED!
A SNOW DAY
VIRAL VIDEO
SUCCESS STORY

4. In January, we created a snow day video that
truly went viral globally, appearing on
American news broadcasts (Good Morning
America and Access Hollywood) and
international outlets (BBC Trending). The
video currently has more than 3.7 million
YouTube views.
How in the world did this happen?
Prior to this our YouTube
traffic had been average at best.
#BBK12UC

5. Like a lot of schools, we were inspired by the
success of previous snow day videos done by
other schools. We wanted to try to do our
own.
Our Director of Communications Adam Olenn
hatched the idea of doing a “Let It Go” parody
involving our Head of School. We thought:
Who knows, maybe we’ll get some interest
and go viral, you know maybe 50,000 views or
something. How cool would that be??
#BBK12UC

6. The process:
-Writing lyrics/recording the song (and concerns
about copyright)
-Scripting/storyboard
-Biggest challenge: scheduling the Head of School!
-Shooting
-Editing (until 3 am the morning before Blizzard of
2015 hit!)
#BBK12UC

7. Keep in mind:
-The blizzard came as a surprise, but our intention
was to have it ready to go for the first snow storm
(with no scrambling).
-Not knowing how long we had to make it, we did fast
“run & gun” style video shooting in little windows of
available time over a period of a few weeks.
#BBK12UC

8. The tools:
• HD camcorder (Canon
VIXIA HF G20)
• Low-cost steadycam
• LED lights
• Green screen
• Final Cut Pro X
• Booking a recording
studio (cost under $200)
#BBK12UC

9. #BBK12UC

10. The Video:
“School Is Closed”
#BBK12UC
View: https://youtu.be/OjE72Q8s8wo

11. Sharing/promoting:
We…
-Sent an e-blast to our full community, including alumni (which
we don’t typically do for snow days)
-Posted to YouTube and our website video gallery
-Social media: Twitter, Instagram (picture with link in
description), Facebook. We boosted the post on FB more than
once, and used Twitter aggressively -- tagging media outlets the
day the storm hit and also the next day. Local media picked it up,
then Boston’s NPR… from there it grew and grew and grew.
-3.7 million YouTube views are just the beginning of the story if
you consider TV exposure, for example.
#BBK12UC

12. What helped this
video go viral?
According to a related Forbes article from 2014:
“Having a piece of content go viral is like winning the
Internet’s version of the lottery. It’s incredibly difficult
to achieve and often hard to replicate. For every viral
video success, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of
failures. Even Upworthy, the king of virality, only has
0.3 percent of posts going viral.”
#BBK12UC

13. What helped this
video go viral?
Key traits of a viral video (Source: Forbes):
-Be Short and Sweet
-Be Upbeat
-Be Timely
-Be Involved (engagement)
-Be Informative
-Be Inspiring
#BBK12UC

14. What helped our
video go viral?
Another article, this time on FoxBusiness.com, probably best
describes why our video succeeded:
CAPTURING LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE
Offering content “that people are going to want to talk about and
pass along.”
The article quotes Eric Schiffer, CEO of DigitalMarketing.com:
“You’ve got to be putting out something unique and different:
man bites dog, man bites shark.”
#BBK12UC

15. What helped our
video go viral?
Essentially, most of the lightning in our bottle was due to a
clever idea shared at JUST THE RIGHT TIME.
#BBK12UC

16. But what does this really
get you (or not get you),
practically speaking?:
-It gets you a lot of national and global attention, and a lot of
school pride that you are making headlines for something fun/
positive. And it’s a big win for a Communications office.
-Interactions with other schools across the world.
-A big boost in YouTube subscribers and web traffic (at least
temporarily), SEO benefits, and increased followers on Twitter
and Facebook.
-It will NOT necessarily translate into A LOT more inquiries for
your Admissions office or a bunch of donations for your
Development/Advancement office.
#BBK12UC

17. Given that going viral is
so difficult/hard to
predict, should you still
try?:
-Yes!!
-Even if your video doesn’t make it on The Today Show, your
community will still enjoy it and you can still get a larger number
of hits than you typically get. In turn, further building your
followers, web traffic, etc.
-And it’s fun to try. And to keep trying…
#BBK12UC

18. Oh, and we made a
sequel:
#BBK12UC
View: https://youtu.be/1ClmXqi-gzg

19. Questions?
Contact:
Ryan Vemmer
rvemmer@mosesbrown.org
#BBK12UC