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 properties 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 through, 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?

What more 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:

Ideas for TED ed

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 vidoe, 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. For updates check out the Jasonera blog here. For more studies and ideas check out here.