Ted Ed
Now this may be stepping on hallowed ground, but we have to ask ourselves, can TED ed do more? And you might be thinking that they have done loads already, and they have. But is it enough or can we generate ideas which may help them?
First off, who are they?
Well, their mission is:
"TED-Ed’s
mission is to create lessons worth sharing. Feed and expand your
curiosity with our award-winning animated shorts - published on YouTube
and available with supplemental learning materials on ed.ted.com".
We think they are achieving this. But what with?
The positives of TED ed
Right, we have:
- A website, full of everything you
want from a website. Links, consolidated information, a shop, social
links. Blog, teeny tiny newsletter signup. How to get involved, create
video plans (a cool idea), checking out educators within the community
and whole load more
- X- 547k followers, updated regularly and sometimes multiple times per day
- Insta-
38k followers. Sometimes it can be just pictures to click on with no
text, other days it can be like this (which is much better):
- Facebook- 8.5 million followers, gets updated regularly
- Patreon- 4.7k members
- Youtube channel-
20 million subs, over 4 billion views, 2k videos. Shorts, with long
form videos ranging from 29million views all the way to 200k views and
everything inbetween (but seems to be around the million or so mark)
So it all seems nice in TED ed land. There's plenty of feedback and positive comments. Tons of "likes".
It
also seems like TED ed is a non-profit where people can send in
educational videos, ideas and thoughts and those can be created into
videos or have educational videos "promoted" from the main website.
Income is generated through TED and affiliates though, as TED states: "TED
makes money through conference attendance fees, sponsorships,
foundation support, licensing fees and book sales, and we spend it as
soon as we get it — on video editing, web development and hosting for
TED Talks and TED-Ed videos (ideas are free, but bandwidth is
expensive…); support for community-driven initiatives like TEDx and the
TED Fellows, and of course, paying fair salaries to staffers and
interns."
So the idea must be therefore to spread ideas and thoughts?
With all this greatness, what else can Ted Ed do?
This seems to be the issue doesn't it, what now? Well, when we have a look at it, it seems like TED is like a walking talking Wiki. It is also like an AI- giving information on topics.
So why aren't the videos getting higher views, more shares, more follows?
Well,
when we had a look around their videos on their main website, it was
for "Does Aloe Really Treat A Sunburn". Cool. :) However, when you click
on the link the video is not TEDS, you get directed to someones channel and their video. I am assuming therefore, that TED doesn't necessarily get the ad revenue from that video?
Now, no-where on the referred to site is TED-ed.
On the
flipside, you get a video about the Origins of the Olympics, which is
created by TED ed animation and is their on Youtube and hosted on their
own site. You get more interaction and a better understanding/ education
from the video:
The steps to help TED improve sales, traffic and their social good
Highly likely these ideas are being done/ have been done. But you
just never know. Again, these are just ideas to help or spark an
imagination.
- Videos. People can amplify their own
voices through Podcasting and Youtube so you have to ask, why you? TED
is a cool name but it needs to be catapulting rather than suggesting. So
with the videos can you ask for a link back to an educational resource
on the main TED website if someone else is using that video? Can you ask them for a collab shout out? Some people also like the idea of being a TED affiliate- the name is quite powerful.
Therefore why can't some of your ideas be sold (is it to do with
charity status?). So you have Khan Academy so why wasn't TED ed there
instead? Why not have an off-shoot of your videos tailored to
mathematics, science- why have them all clumped up in one place? So TED
Math. TED Science. This is how Vsauce started to change up what was being discussed, growing but keeping the same style that people were used to.
- Amazon.
With Amazon there is so much on sale that there is a whole science
dedicated to finding out how to recommend back products that people
might be interested in. Your main site is so full with videos there
could be too much choice. There really needs to be a way to filter out videos into specific topics more easily and recommend
other videos on exactly the same topic. It is a hard and daunting task
but it can be done. So I clicked on one video, how does an air
conditioners work? The following videos were recommended:

Not too many related videos- no weather, no greenhouse gasses, no climate patterns etc. Where did bulletproof vest come into it?
- School science awards live.
Now if you are aiming for education, then how about sponsoring school
trips/ educational events or even the school science awards? Maybe these
could be regional and then a national title.
- Mentors.
Could you hook up kids/ teens to a mentor in their field or allow a
mentor to come in and speak to a group. I know there are TED ed people
out there that can do that, but maybe have them contact local schools
regardless of being asked to come in. This could work especially well if
the mentor is from that area initially- or from that school/
educational system. This could
work well in deprived areas where students might not think there is an
"out" or they might aim lower because, whats the point? A local
mentor could show the process, the actual steps- rather than "get an
education"- kinda meaningless if you do not know how to go along the
path of "education" or after school.
- Food. There are
probably videos that are linked to food security/ poverty and child
health? So could those videos have 100% of their profits channelled
towards school lunches? Odd request, but you hear of kids racking up
lunch bills and unable to afford the meals. This idea could also be
linked towards certain videos channelling their ad revenue towards the thing that they are promoting/ educating about. People would be more inclined to watch if the video meant something and had an end goal.
- Awards.
This is something that people could look forward to or even show off as
a trophy on their website. But having an award session each year
highlighting the best effective use of resources/ education spread. Categories could be made using what your aims and what you have seen.
These awards could be physical and also you could even have virtual
awards. These would be created through research and given to websites/
online properties which have shown what TED ed means. Also nice that
they would have a link back to your site :)
- Courses. Now
these are somewhere, they just have to be. I can't find them anywhere.
But, surely books, courses could be added to the shop as eproducts-
maybe through affiliate links of hand picked resources that have changed
people/ offering to sell on their behalf. Better still products created
through your own hand picked brand. I am sure that people would buy an
ebook or eproduct from TED ed rather than someone they are not sure
about. And if you are selling on their behalf then brand trust would go a
super long way in their educational efforts?
- The shop. It is hard to find on the website.

It is very sparse. This is one page of 2. Thats it, mugs and
Tshirts. Of all the products out there, a handful of products are for
sale- one is even out of stock. So people are buying and they probably
want more. Maybe behind these scenes of TED Talks or even buy the
transcripts/ book of the events. How about products from the sources-
like handcrafted items, posters, pens, colouring tools, science items
and projects. Some Youtubers are selling product packs, so why not
collab with them?
- Conferences. Sure we have TED
but that is mainly people talking one after the other. But how about a
fully fledged conference- mixing in sponsorship, hands on, speakers,
company talks, government officials even. The conferences could be
different, they could also be changed into camps. Then you could collab
with different industry pros like science Youtubers, literacy/ reading
influencers
- Person. Now this comes with the
territory of content, but figuring out a figurehead we believe is
important. Now it can be a group of people like MrBeast or Dude Perfect, or it can be 1 person (with a occasionally seen team) like Enes.
But sometimes adding a figurehead can remove the "corporate" away from
the product and bring it down to earth and more relatable. There could
be a Mind Group- so 5 people who sum up the main topics that your videos
cover- like Science, Tech, Art, Health etc. They could all interact.
As always we wish TED ed all the best in doing their cool work.
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