Strengthen your Internal Communications Strategy with Video
Digital is transforming internal communications. If you’re looking for fresh comms strategies, video is a worthwhile investment. Film has the extraordinary ability to overcome cultural, geographical, and generational barriers. It can engage the previously hard-to-reach, communicate organisational change, and is personable. Many organisations are using film to deliver effectual communications to their workforce.
Measurable Results
A substantial benefit of using video is that many video hosting platforms, including YouTube and Vimeo, enables users to monitor views and drop-out rates, alongside other stats. This data allows for precise analysis of engagement so you can prove the value of the video and set benchmarks for future initiatives.
Engage the Hard-to-Reach
Company-wide engagement can be difficult to master, particularly if you’re targeting the hard-to-reach. If your organisation has employees across many generations, employs remote workers, or has international teams in multiple locations, it can be challenging to find a communication method that reaches everyone.
Film holds attention and can engage a broad spectrum of personalities, with multi-generational appeal. Video content is easily digestible and can be made more accessible with subtitles (including closed caption and foreign language), audio description, and picture infographics.
For time-poor employees, film can relay a great quantity of information in a shorter amount of time, compared to text. Video is near-effortless to watch, made readily available on office computers and also on the move: on laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
Inspire Colleagues
Inspiration is a sure way to drive productivity. Leaders such as CEOs and Heads of Department need to be seen and video puts a face to a name: it’s authentic communication, that conveys feeling and animation. Nuances like intonation and emphasis, which are often in danger of being lost in plain text, are clearly understandable.
Video can reach employees across the globe and is available to view at the next convenient point in their work schedule. For a business with a round-the-clock operation, a video message from the leadership team acknowledges all staff: including shift and part-time workers, and workers across all time zones - they can access the video content at the start of their next working day, whenever this is.
Video coverage of an event, such as an annual conference, can reach out to staff physically unable to attend. Livestream video content allows them to follow the speakers, watch the talks in real time, and experience the atmosphere of the event, despite not being present. Event filming builds connection and promotes inclusion.
Celebrate Achievements
Spread the word about your organisation’s successes: publish company growth, congratulate colleagues for targets met, and report project outcomes. Video is increasingly being used by organisations to celebrate achievements, collective and individual.
Staff morale has an immense impact on productivity. Many leaders acknowledge the importance of recognising achievements. Video is an extrinsic motivational tool, arguably more exciting than an internal memo or line in a newsletter. It’s a permanent record of a success, that can be distributed digitally at no cost.
Why not communicate your annual or quarterly company reviews via video? A well-produced film gives employees a glimpse into the running of the organisation, as a whole, and an understanding as to how their work contributes to the bigger picture. Not only can you update staff on the company’s performance, you can set goals for the future and introduce any changes.
Communicate Organisational Change
Change can be daunting for staff, whether they’re new or long-standing. An engaging video can inspire employees through periods of change, lessening resistance, and increasing co-operation.
Introducing a new colleague to the workforce is a quick process via live video. For global organisations with a large workforce, video can be a practical and cost-effective substitute to face-to-face introductions.
A video tour can showcase a new premises and can be preferable to a public viewing, particularly if your workforce is very large, geographically spread or the location is restricted, for example under laboratory conditions.
Use video to introduce structural changes or explain best-practice methods. A visual demonstration of expectations is often more memorable than text instructions.
Commissioned films are controllable from start to finish. Their meaning cannot be corrupted over time - they deliver a consistent message at each viewing.
At Firebird Films, so far this year we’ve produced quarterly performance updates, training films, video content to celebrate staff achievements, inspirational demos for sales teams, and covered annual company conferences. Many of our clients are capitalising on the latest digital channels and we support them with this, from concept development to implementation.
Firebird Films is a full-service video production agency, with over a decade of experience in corporate communications. Take a look at our recent work and get in touch to discuss how film fits into your comms strategy.
