Social media video maker: encourage your teams to share

Nowadays, many companies (whatever the business is, either small business or big one) want to make an impression with videos on social networks. The aim is to take advantage of this channel to be seen by as many people as possible and make people talk about you and your brand, thanks to video clips.

But, this communication strategy must rely on your internal teams. Your employees, who work for you on a daily basis, are the most legitimate people to speak on your behalf.

Here are some figures for promo videos:

• 54% of employees don’t hesitate to share work-related videos with their colleagues each week.
• 59% of consumers consider employees to be the most trustworthy source to learn about a company (Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer), before any subscription or purchase.

Therefore, it is in your best interest to encourage your employees to become the main actors of your digital communication, through animated videos.

But how do you get them to share your videos on their social networks?

The concept of employee advocacy

When corporate video content is created and published online, many companies have the reflex to share it internally, via email, a LinkedIn post or a newsletter. This is what we call social selling.

Of course, this approach is the basis of any communication, but it is not enough to properly involve your employees.

To go further, you need to understand what employee advocacy is: as you may guess, it includes the terms “employee” and “advocate”.

Your employees must therefore become true ambassadors of your brand/company on social networks: this is the philosophy that will instinctively drive them to share your video content. Ambassadors means that your employees defend your cause, even in times of crisis.

And for that, it’s important to meet several criteria.

Involve your teams in your social network videos

The video for social networks can have several formats:

• a teaser,
• a retrospective,
• a business presentation,
• a staff interview,

Or any other format of your choice 🙂

What is clear, is that your employees must be part of this video strategy. Ask people from your company to present their job, talk about their experience, or talk about an important event that has just occurred.

This staging will automatically create a feeling of identification: they are the ones talking, not you. As a result, the people who testify in your videos will feel legitimate and listened to within your structure. This gratifying feeling will push them to share your videos, and therefore to talk about you, with their community on social networks.

People prefer to see and hear your employees rather than read cold and impersonal corporate communiqués.

Some examples from Pitchy

A team presentation: Sophie and Justine, from the Client Success Management division, talk about their role and objectives:

A portrait format employee interview (ideal for Instagram): Jimmy, Sales Manager at Pitchy, tells us about his confinement:

A Chinese portrait of Marion, Client Success Manager:

Encourage your employees to generate their own content

This is what we call employee-generated content. Your employees don’t just testify in a video: they create the content themselves. And through their testimonials, your company’s values are put forward.

This strategy is even more effective for two main reasons:

• In times of quarantine and self-isolation, it is easier to make a video from home,
• A smartphone can make good quality videos in the right format, especially for Instagram.

This is what the giant Microsoft did last summer, asking its employees, all over the world, to film themselves on a daily basis, and talk about their hopes, what makes them get up every morning.

Of course, you’re likely to have to deal with some reluctance: some people don’t feel comfortable with video editing, or simply with putting themselves on display.

You don’t have to force anyone but you can encourage them in several ways:

• offer your employees a quick training on how to take videos with their smartphone,
• organise an internal contest: the employees could vote for the most original content from one of their own,
• give them the necessary filming equipment if needed,
• do some storytelling: explain why you want to encourage them to film, what you would like to know about their experience/personality/projects,
• show yourself as an example, by filming yourself before them.

Want to create videos for social networks? Request a demo of the Pitchy solution: discover our platform with many tools, such as templates, voiceover effets and images!