Lisa Turnbull
3 min read
Something has changed in recent years, and that change is the way we digest information. We’re moving from focusing on the written word to engage audiences with a powerful new medium - video.
Videos are processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text, and so our natural, subconscious tendency towards ‘laziness’ prefers watching video reading as it is quite simply easier. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The added bonus of video content is it is much easier to achieve a ‘human’ tone when delivering content in this way than it can be with the written word.
Cisco predicts that by as early as next year video will account for 69 percent of all consumer internet traffic.
From virtual reality goggles through to 10 second snippets on Snapchat, there are dozens of quirky and interesting ways to create a wow moment with your video content. Here are some of the ways we’re using video media:
To boost our internal news:
At Reward Gateway, we love video. Wistia and YouTube have made it really easy for us to host video online either within our SmartHub® platform or beyond. We use video for:
- Everyday communications
- CEO updates
- Bi-weekly briefings
- Leadership interviews
Our bi-weekly “Global Briefing” is the name of our in-house news show which broadcasts to all of our offices. It’s the first place that our people find out about everything that is going on across our business. We first began with a basic video camera and a green screen in a cupboard, but it’s since grown into a team volunteer-driven project.
For companies looking to introduce video to your overall communications strategy, we feel like video helps connect our global offices as all staff receives the video link in our daily boom! email news updates at the same time. Plus, it enables us to showcase our personality and values in a way we simply can’t achieve with other medium.
Our teams watch Global Briefing together in groups, so open discussion is encouraged. It creates two-way communication among team members and their team lead.
We also use video for shorter and ad-hoc updates on everything from the announcement of our next Christmas party venue to crucial business updates. If Glenn, our CEO, has something he wants to share with the team it is far quicker for him to jump onto his Mac (or even his iPhone) and film what he wants to say than to spend an hour writing it down, and it also enables us to get that content to everyone quicker. (Check out his YouTube channel for a peek at these kinds of updates.)
To deepen innovation:
We’ve spread the video love to our clients as well. We incorporate video into new promotions, such as an animated marketing video to explain a new reward programme to their people.
Recently, we developed bespoke video stands to be displayed in prominent locations across one of our client’s offices. These large displays are eye catching and on-brand with a slim video screen in the centre and space for any other marketing collateral needed to explain new programs.
These screens host videos as a self-guided tutorial for their benefits program, removing the need for in-person tutorials. Like our briefings, video also helps educate the employees on their own schedule.
The creative use of video helped drive engagement on the benefits platform to more than 90%.
Whether you’re using it internally or externally, video opportunities are endless. Have you tried using video in your communications plans?