4 Must-Haves of Employee-Facing Videos
Getting internal communication videos right is all about engaging the employee, but sometimes that’s easier said than done. When done right, video is one of the most effective forms of communication, but there are certain elements that have to be present for the video to be successful with employees.
We’ll give you the four best tips to create videos that employees love and that help you increase your engagement. By keeping these tips in mind when creating internal communication videos, you’ll create something meaningful and engaging for employees.
Take them out of work mode
It might seem counterintuitive to make internal communication videos less like work, but actually, it works. If watching your videos feels like more work, employees just aren’t going to be engaged. The right videos strike a balance between fun and informative - watching them shouldn’t feel like a chore for the employee.
So when designing videos for internal communication, think less about what you want them to know or do and more about how you can use your video to brighten their day. The video should bring them on a journey, make them laugh, make them emotional, and ultimately, be entertaining.
Colleagues should have leading roles
Building that emotional connection in an internal communication video is all about evoking feelings but also having familiar faces front and center. When it comes to videos, people love to see people they know, and that familiarity builds an emotional connection. It’s part of why we love stars. It’s that feeling of knowing that person on the screen and that exciting feeling that comes with it.
That’s how it is with friends and family, too, we love seeing videos with them equally. And for that same reason, seeing coworkers in videos is an exciting feeling and one that really boosts engagement for employees. Again, it’s about seeing familiar people, such as coworkers, in a new, unique situation and seeing what they’re going to do and how they’re going to perform in the video, which makes it exciting for employees.
Don’t waste their time
Effective videos don’t need to be long - they just need to get to what they’re trying to convey. It’s a bit of a myth that something needs to be long and detailed for it to be engaging. The video just needs to have a clear angle and feeling that it’s meant to convey.
When coming up with your video for internal communication, convey the feeling you set out to convey in the least amount of time possible. Set it up, deliver it, and get out - that’s all you need.
Employees don’t have the attention span or the time to really focus, that’s why it’s so important to ensure that your video is hitting key points well to make it as engaging as possible.
Have a clear call to action
A video doesn’t work if there’s a vague and unclear call to action or, worse when there is no call to action.
Employees need to know why they just watched something and what it means for them. The call to action is necessary to end the video because it connects all the dots of what they’ve just seen and tells them what they are meant to take away from the experience. What are they meant to do now that they have watched the video?
The call to action is essentially a way to tie everything together and empower employees to take the next step or some kind of initiative in a clear, straightforward way. The call to action is essential to show employees how the video serves them personally - whether that’s making their work easier, more enjoyable, or the business stronger.
Summing it up
Ultimately, the key takeaway here is to ensure that your videos evoke feelings, feature familiar people, and are short with a clear call to action. Employees need to know why they’re watching something, and seeing familiar people will help them connect to the video emotionally. Finally, the call to action is that final puzzle piece that brings it all together, connects everything, and tells employees what they can do next.
These four tips are crucial to creating truly engaging and compelling video internal communications. When you implement these four tips in your video, not only will you get better engagement with your videos, you'll be signaling that leadership values their time.
Your employees will keep opening and playing the videos you send them and taking action, making it an effective form of communication. But you'll see engagement wane if you fail to do all four.
Having these elements and creating a purpose-driven, engaging video ensures that your employees will look forward to viewing them and feel motivated once they have watched the video - all the way to the end, of course!