Camera, lights and action

Our members are our biggest ambassadors of Toastmasters and the value and benefits of being part of Toastmasters.

Grab some popcorn and see what they have to say.










External versus Internal Public Relations

We have internal and external YouTube channels. Why is this?

Our potential members and our members are different audiences, with differing needs. A potential member has very limited attention and needs to understand the benefit to them of watching a video within the first few seconds, otherwise it will be too late and they will have swiped onto the next video that the social medium offers to them. 70% viewer retention after 5 seconds actually represents very strong traction on YouTube! The imperative is to get straight to the point. Intro music and titles can wait or be overlaid, but you need to drop your viewers into the meatiest content immediately.

Members, on the other hand, come to learn and are altogether far more relaxed about forgiving of poor (or no) video editing. Two types of audience demand two types of content and two different approaches to promoting that content. 

For our first 8 years on YouTube, we got this wrong at District 91 and mixed all the content up on one channel. Content has rarely had good descriptive text or appropriate hashtags added to it. Some of it was even tagged as “Made for kids” although we require members to be 18+ years old. This mix of multipurpose content makes it impossible for YouTube’s video recommendation engine to make sensible choices about our content and offer another good video from us for the potential members to watch next. It’s like interrupting someone when they’re in the mood for buying something to offer them something completely different. The next video needs to support the previous one: consistency is key.

As of October 2023 we’re starting the process of separating our external content for potential members from our internal content for members. It will lead to better targeting and engagement, and should lead to far more views overall, as well as viewers becoming members.

Nikita Parks, Public Relations Manager 2023-24