Employee Videos Are A Content Cornucopia

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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

Tony Gnau - T60 ProductionsTony Gnau is the Founder and Chief Storytelling Officer at T60 Productions. He’s a three-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, has led T60 Productions to winning 18 Telly Awards for its corporate videos, and is the author of the Amazon #1 Bestseller “Lights, Camera, Impact: storytelling, branding, and production tips for engaging corporate videos.”