When it comes to video marketing, leveraging your workforce is an excellent way to have a powerful impact on other members of the organisation, as well as external partners.

We’ve spoken about this topic in this past, showing how some of our partners have used a staff video to increase participation in reuse, namely by getting senior figures to take part and encourage engagement.

Here are two amazing examples:

Royal Free

Sunderland Partnership

In this article, we are going to give you TEN great tips (plus a few bonus ones) on how to make your staff video.

Tip one - It’s a fun change from traditional marketing

Traditional marketing might mean leaflets, posters, newspaper adverts, or internal emails, so doing a video that includes staff members will be an engaging change. People will like to see and listen to their colleagues and bosses. When making your video, remember that it doesn’t need to be very corporate and sterile, you can instead be creative and have fun with this visual medium.

Tip two - It’s cheaper

Hiring actors, studios, equipment and more can all be very costly. Use the people and resources that you already have at your disposal (that’s our whole ethos, by the way) and you will save money. The difference in money can be invested somewhere else to greater effect.

Tip three - Staff have greater insight, use that to your advantage

Preparing a script is not a good idea, instead use cues and guidelines to drive discussion in the right direction. Employees should know what they’re talking about and be happy to talk about it in a way that the audience will enjoy hearing. Include people who are supporters of the topic of your video so that their passion can be shown.

Tip four - Show staff from throughout the organisation

The owner, CEO, or Director of an organisation is obviously going to support the mission or project, so the viewer is not being massively enlightened by including them (it does hold weight though). So, what do the ground-level staff think? What do the drivers think? What do the managers think? Do new and old staff agree? Use this to your advantage. A well-rounded view is great for the viewer.

Tip five - Action shots

As well as shots interviewing your staff to gain their insight and opinion, you should capture action shots of people working, communicating, getting their hands dirty etc. If people see their colleagues hard at work, it will motivate them to do the same, call it guilt or inspiration, it works.

Tip six - Keep it natural

Let people use their own words, wear their own clothes, and do the interview in their chosen setting. Trying to stage the video marketing will damage its authenticity and harm the original message. You want the people in the video to be comfortable and natural, because the truth is stranger than fiction.

Tip seven - Don’t force anyone to participate

Worse than a staged video is a video containing people who clearly don’t want to be there! Contact the people you most want in the video and let them volunteer to take part. You might have to persuade some people, but it’s more likely that time is an issue rather than screen confidence.

Tip eight - Non-speaking roles

It may turn out that the best people for your video really don’t want to talk on camera. You can counteract this by giving them a non-speaking role, or putting them in key action shots.

Tip nine - Rehearse!

You aren’t going to get the perfect shot on the first take, so encourage your participants to practice. Give them the questions or topics that they will need to explore on camera so that they can mentally prepare. The easiest way to induce panic is to throw someone in at the deep end. Remember tips six and seven, you want them to want to be there, and to be natural in doing so.

Tip ten - Camera quality counts

Professional video marketers will tell you over and over that camera quality is vitally important. Recording on a mobile phone might look good for social media, but when it comes to high quality marketing videos, you need a real camera, and ideally someone who knows how to use it. Your organisation or a partner might already have this equipment, and finding someone to use it shouldn’t be too hard if you ask around.

Bonus tips for taking staff videos to the next level

Here are some extra tips for those who have some video marketing experience and want their organisation to take video content to the next level.

Bonus tip one - Create a dedicated space

Create an in-house mini-studio, because having a dedicated space makes creating a greater quantity and quality of videos so much easier. It also means that other departments can get in on the act, and before you know it, the whole organisation is doing video marketing! Space, backdrop, lights, sound equipment - it’s about as simple as that (don’t forget the camera).

Bonus tip two - Have a dedicated interviewee in every department

Some people are shy, some people aren’t interested, and some people don’t want to be the face of anything. Forget these people and look for the charismatic rays of light who love getting in front of the camera and waxing lyrical about anything you guide them to. One person in each department is ideal, so that when the time comes, you know who you are going to call up.

Bonus tip three - Create one-on-one videos with staff

If a member of staff has a video about them, their work, their efforts, their projects, and their ethos, they’re going to use that video as a point of reference, perhaps on social media, perhaps in their email signature, or perhaps when dealing with enquiries. It’s an amazing tool that shows so much more than text can.

Good luck with your videos!