Raise your hand if you are still using PowerPoint slides to communicate the strategy of your organisation. For the last 20 years, an easy and convenient tool to communicate business successful strategies has been a slide deck. What followed after making an effective and elaborate deck was gathering the people. Workplace meetings were the option for transferring important knowledge and information to colleagues. Meetings provide an opportunity for organic discussion and allow you to convey your message clearly. It can be difficult though, to align schedules and get all the necessary people in the same room at one time. But then once the deck is ready, you just have to carry it around and be willing to repeat performance at town halls, conferences, one-on-one interactions (formal or over coffee), and recently over webinars.
Email has been another great communication tool. You can craft emails and review them to ensure accuracy and completion. They can be sent to individuals or groups of virtually any size, and you can attach items like images or documents that your recipients need. Despite all the positives of email, it has its drawbacks. The average employee receives 121 emails a day, according to Campaign Monitor. Given this volume, it’s realistic to think your text-based email risks getting skimmed over or, worse yet, ignored. After a while it gets boring to read long emails, and at times they might be even misinterpreted by your receivers.
During the past two years of pandemic and varied changes in the workplace, many of us had to switch professions, learn how to work from home, manage calls and meetings via online platforms. Hence all workers and companies are seriously considering other options for effective communications. While meetings and email remain effective forms of communication, video emerged as a great and particularly efficient option.
Is video better?
Not only can videos replace emails, but they can help keep your calendar clear by replacing meetings as well. Instead of getting your whole team together for a share out or presentation, send them a video instead that they can watch on their own time. Ultimately all decks have a story to weave and engage attention, so the same way Turn the story about your business and about your strategy into a video or a mini movie!
Businesses that use the power of video to improve employee engagement are future-proofing their workplace. Using video content to communicate is efficient, it’s something employees’ desire, and it’s extremely cost-effective, saving you and your business time and money.
Video is preferred in the workplace! Regardless of age, the desire to see increased video communication is pretty universal. 48% of all employees consider video the most engaging form of communication. So how do videos differ from slide decks to inspire change? Simple, they add a dynamic component to it; there is a feeling that something is happening – a story is unfolding – and they generate traction. On top of all the above, videos engage more senses, not only the visual but the audio too, helping neurons firing new connections.
Video is cost effective and time efficient. Perhaps the biggest reason to use more of this visual and effective tool is that videos can actually save organisations money. In case you are trying it for the first time, you can choose to create videos at minimal cost.
Interview videos are one of the friendliest video options, in terms of cost, creation time, as well as reach. Because they can be totally friendly, or casual, or formal depending upon the audience. And in moulding your interview video for the relevant audience, it won’t be time consuming or very expensive either.
So List down your various audiences, and the relevance of the interview video for each of the categories – for example Board members, stakeholders, top management, Channel partners, managers, staff and the community in general.
Next list down what they would like to know via the interview video. The director can address the managers and factory people via an interview video, say once every quarter. The information will highlight certain aspects for the chosen audience. Right?
Interview videos are most beneficial to communicate
- Your business strategy – Board member or Director can do a short interview video, with 3 questions, to convey your business values, strategy and vision. Or at times, just a single question interview video to reach out for a regular update to employees so they know how the company is faring overall.
- Changes in the strategy – Announcing significant corporate changes via an interview with your CEO! When you have new initiatives that you need everyone to be aware of, a video can help cut through and outline what it is and why it’s crucial. Consider policy changes, new projects, mergers and acquisitions, new legislative requirements, external marketing and promotions, new products, and more.
- Information sharing – A senior can do an interview video for onboarding staff. Research and marketing teams can do interview videos about new products, and services, their benefits; and how to reach out to get them, order placing and feedback etc.
- Inspiring employees working from home – these can be quick and funny. Sharing good news stories from employees via video can help boost morale, increase camaraderie, help build successful teams, and break down silos.
- Training and education – Creating your suite of interview style training videos can help save money when you no longer have to send employees to an external provider. The video will also help them to retain knowledge better than text.
- Demos of new software or troubleshooting issues- New software systems can be a headache to implement across the organisation, particularly if they have many different functions. Q & A interview video at its best!
- Live-streaming of events – Corporate events such as town halls, awards ceremonies, presentations, and important meetings can be live-streamed, so those who cannot physically attend can still feel as though they have participated. Making the video available later, people who were unable to view it live don’t have to miss out.
- Handling a crisis at work – if there is a mishap, or wrong information gone out, a message from the CEO or top management can just do the trick.
There are lots of different tools available to help you make video content – including free options such as Canva, Typito, Kapwing or Soapbox which can help you get started if you’ve never created video before, using templates. There are professional tools also on the market, such as Adobe Premiere or iMovie.
However, you can also hire an agency to create these videos for usage in the long term. Agency will make sure the message and branding does not get lost, while addressing your varied audience. The agency (like ours) will also help you with prominent placement on your intranet and internet pages, and advice on timely sharing on corporate social media channels.
Connect with us for a free consultation at info@neonvideos.com
