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Businesses all over are desperate for content ideas. They rack their brains trying to find compelling content to share via their various media outlets. Well, there happens to be a treasure trove of content ideas right under their noses. What they need to produce are employee videos.

Featuring the company’s workers is one of the easiest and best ways to generate content for an organization. Show employees doing their jobs. Interview them and help them tell their stories. Allow their passion to shine through.

Easier said than done, right?

It’s easier than you might think. How do you get started? Just take a look around your place of business…

• who’s the person who makes everyone laugh?
• who’s the person everyone loves? The person who’s always smiling.
• look at your product/service chain, pick-out a person to represent each phase and feature them… receptionist, customer service rep, plant manager, production line worker, quality control, shipping.
• does anyone at the company have an interesting hobby?
• does anyone have a crazy collection of some sort? Bonus points if they keep some of it at the workplace.
• has anyone overcome a personal struggle?

These are just a few ideas, but honestly… in the hands of a professional storyteller… you could literally feature every employee because everyone has a story.

Everyone has a story

It’s true. My TV news mentor, CBS feature reporter Steve Hartman, used to do a segment called, Everyone Has A Story. He would throw a dart at the map, go there, and pick someone at random out of the phone book to feature. The stories he found were AWESOME! His current segment, On The Road, is fun to watch as well.

My point is it can be done. If you wanted to, you could feature every employee. They might not think they have a story to share, but start digging and you’ll be surprised with what you find. There are even ways to get camera shy people into the spirit.

Their stories might relate directly to their job, or they might not have anything to do with the company. It doesn’t matter. The idea behind the videos doesn’t have to be to pat the company on the back. It’s to allow your audience to get to know everyone at the company.

They’re good on two fronts

One of the great things about employee videos is that they serve a dual content purpose. You can certainly use them for marketing purposes, but they’re also great internally.

Let’s start with marketing. I’m not sure why many business leaders don’t recognize this, but some of their best sales people don’t work in sales. They work on the assembly line. They answer phones. They manage the art department. People who are passionate about their jobs are interesting.

Viewers who are passionate about their jobs connect with them. Viewers who hate their jobs are envious of them. The common denominator is that everyone like to watch these passionate people at work.

The net result is an audience that’s learning more and more about the people who work at the company. They get to know them. They learn to like them. Considering we buy from people we like, you begin to understand how powerful these videos can be.

That’s not all though. You might be producing these videos to introduce outsiders to your team, but think about how awesome it’s going to make the team itself feel.

Employee videos are a great morale booster. Sure, the person featured gets a boost. You’re giving them a very public pat-on-the-back. The great thing is their co-workers will love the videos too.

They tend to learn things about the people working next to them that they might not have known otherwise. The more they learn about one another, the closer they become. The closer they become, the more cohesive a unit the company gets. It all leads to great productivity.

Bottom line for producing employee videos

Why produce these videos? Simple. The more we know about people at the company, the more we trust them. The more we trust them, the more likely we’ll be to buy from them.

There’s a reason video is perfect for this type of content. Video isn’t about facts and figures… it’s about emotion. It’s about capturing emotion in the employees and tapping emotion in the audience.

Human stories are all about emotion. They can make you laugh or cry. They can make you feel good. They can inspire confidence. They can influence whether or not you like someone.

Are you starting to understand how powerful these employee videos can be for an organization?

Use these videos to help your audience connect with your company.

–Tony Gnau

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I recently got to interview Joe Pulizzi… founder of the Content Marketing Institute. We’re producing an event video for the Chicago chapter of the American Marketing Association, and he’ll be one of two keynote speakers at this year’s BrandSmart conference.

Joe talks about video content marketing

Anyway, he was nice enough to answer a few video-related questions for our purposes here at the T60 Blog. It went so well I plan to turn the interview into a series of videos, but this will be the first.

As a guy who lives and breathes all things content marketing, I was excited to hear what he had to say about video’s role.

So… enjoy… and we’ll post more video from Joe in the coming weeks.

–Tony Gnau

From everyone at T60 Productions…

Well… I was planning to write today’s post last night, but I didn’t quite get to it. Why? Parenthood.

I was helping my toddler daughter fall asleep at about 7:30-8:00, and I apparently did such a good job I put myself to sleep as well. That means no video insights today… back next week with more.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 12 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

Thank you for your service to our nation.

Thank you for being will to volunteer.

Thank you for pushing yourself physically and mentally.

Thank you for being willing to move from place to place and rarely settle down.

Thank you for giving up personal time for additional training.

Thank you for sacrificing sleep to accomplish your missions.

Thank you for enduring unbearable heat and cold.

Thank you for your willingness to eat MREs.

Thank your for being professionals.

Thank you for facing bullets and shrapnel. 

Thank you for being tough in mind, body and spirit.

Thank your for enduring incredible stress.

Thank you for being brave.

Thank you for protecting the United States of America and freedom all over the globe.

It is we… a grateful nation… that salutes you. Happy Veterans Day.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 12 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

 

 

We’re wrapping up a special Dave Ramsey Week here at T60 the best way possible… with our debt-free scream. All week we’ve been focusing on some EntreLeadership marketing lessons, but today it’s all about wrapping-up our debt-free story.

Mrs. G and I became debt-free (besides our mortgage) a couple of months ago. Over the last four years we have paid-off the lease on an SUV, all of our credit cards, business debt and a student loan. Let me tell you… that debt-free scream last Friday felt pretty good.

I blogged about our debt-free journey back in September, so I won’t rehash what’s already there. All we have left to pay off is our house and that’s next on the list. We are committed to being debt-free for the rest of our lives, and that includes our business.

Anyway, for me, one of the most inspiring parts of Dave’s radio show continues to be the debt-free screams. People who have sacrificed to win, call-in or make the trip to Nashville where the show is broadcast to share their story and proclaim they’re debt-free. Every time I heard one of those calls over the last four years I thought to myself… someday we’re going to do that. I was pretty determined.

Behind the scenes of our debt-free scream

Well, we got our chance last week. As a birthday surprise to me, Mrs. G contacted Dave’s team and arranged for us to do our scream there in Nashville the day before my birthday. Yeah, she’s pretty awesome.

We arrived at Dave’s studio which sits behind some glass in the lobby of Financial Peace Plaza… the home of his company. It was especially cool for me because they recently started broadcasting video of the radio show everyday live on the internet, so I spent most of our time there chatting with members of his video staff.

When it came time for our scream they gave Mrs. G and I some headphones, and a member of Dave’s team occupied our daughter. The interview went by so fast. It was nearly 9-minutes long, but it felt like just a couple of minutes. We both had things we wanted to say and failed to talk about.

Mrs. G wanted to mention that in addition paying off our debt, we managed to pay for our wedding with cash as well as the medical expenses associated with the birth of our daughter. I wanted to talk about how paying off our debt has completely changed our outlook on money, and how we don’t plan to change the frugal lifestyle we’ve grown comfortable with.

Despite that, we were both happy with the interview, and the actual debt-free scream was fun. Dave came out to the lobby a couple of times while we were there, so we got some photos with him and chatted for an another 5-minutes or so.

My Nashville takeaway

It was great to meet Dave and thank him personally for the financial plan that has put us on solid ground, but that’s not what the trip was about. It was really a stepping stone to the next phase of our lives. I feel so fortunate that Mrs. G and I were able to start our marriage working this plan together. I think it has only strengthened our relationship, and we now know that we can tackle any challenge that comes our way.

Was it tough? Yes. Did it take a long time? Yup. Was it worth it? Totally.

We’ll look forward to another trip to Nashville after we pay off our house and finish Baby Step 6.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 12 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

 

No blog post today… sorry. We got overrun with client work and, in taking care of them, we failed to deliver content today.

My bad. We’ll be back tomorrow with something good!

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 12 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

I’m sure I’m like a lot of Americans on this day. It’s hard to look at the date and not think about the morning of September 11, 2001. I think 9/11 will always be that way for me. Without question, it was one of the most emotionally draining days of my life.

So… for me… it’s a day to reflect.

I think back to the day itself when this seasoned news reporter was an emotional wreck, and the day years later when a Port Authority cop allowed me to shoot on Ground Zero. Each are worth a day of reflection.

This past weekend, 60 Minutes had a feature on the 9/11 museum that’s under construction. It’s definitely worth watching. The museum looks like it’s going to be pretty amazing, and I look froward to seeing it someday.

I also look forward to taking my daughter there when she’s older. I hope it helps her understand a time when we saw the worst in humanity followed by the best.

–Tony Gnau

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Yesterday, I was making a case against narrated videos. Today, it’s a videography challenge… the side-by-side interview.

Don’t like them… never have. Yesterday’s objection was rooted in sound beliefs regarding how people watch videos. This one is more style-based, but I have my reasons.

First, unless you’re in a big room or outside, you have to frame-up the shot so wide you get very little depth-of-field. Aesthetically speaker… not the best looking shot.

Second, in most cases what you end-up with is one person talking and another person simply staring at them the whole time. As a viewer, you don’t know where to look. You want to look at the person speaking, but there’s that other person over there. You feel like you have to keep an eye on them too because they might say something at any moment.

Third, and this one is specifically for those of use producing corporate videos, what if one of those people leaves the business? I can’t tell you how many times clients have called us because Sue or Ted just left the company and now they want to pull them out of the company video. If they’re alone on camera for their interview, this is pretty easy. Not so much if they’re sharing the screen with someone else who talks.

How to make it work

The great thing about videography is it’s an art. There are plenty of ways to frame two people on camera for an interview shot, but that’s all dependent on each individual’s skill level. The client’s tolerance for creativity also plays a factor here. If they’re buttoned-up, a creatively-framed shot could freak them out.

When it’s okay

Of course, there’s an exception to every rule. Sometimes the two-person interview works great. If you have two people on-camera at the same time who have a great rapport, it can work well. Think Vince Vahaun and Owen Wilson.

The side-by-side interview is the type of thing when it goes right, it goes right. On the other hand, when it goes bad…

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.