Video is a vital business tool to improve internal communication and increase employee engagement.
Remember the days when videos were just fun little pieces of entertainment used to occupy us in school while the teacher took a brief break?
Well, those carefree days are long gone.
Big businesses and organizations are now firmly harnessing the power of video to improve internal communication both with employees and customers. And they’re discovering huge benefits along the way.
“Survey says…”
Ignite Technologies and Ragan Communications recently published the results of a survey of 713 communicators (company owners, VPs, producers/writers, and managers) from a variety of companies in multiple countries. This publication, Engaging Employees with Video, reported some awesome statistics about the high use of video in companies both large and small.
Two of the most impressive findings are the high percentage of companies already using videos to improve internal communication and employee engagement:
- 71% of communicators currently make videos to converse with employees
- 72% of these companies plan to increase their use of video this year
The two biggest advantages for those companies already using video are the following:
- Communicating with remote employees
- Increased alignment with company goals
Let’s look at these two advantages a little more in-depth.
Communicating with remote employees
Today’s workforce is more mobile than ever, especially with the rise of technology. Whether your employees take frequent business trips, telecommute, or work in other offices scattered throughout the country, you still need to communicate with them.
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Because it’s impossible to physically gather everyone together in the same location, the challenge is getting everyone on the same page at the same time with important company information. This is when videos are a brilliant solution.
Employees who receive videos can watch them whenever it’s most convenient. There’s no more scheduling hassles or worries that employees missed hearing important information because they couldn’t make it to the staff meeting.
Case study: sales directors
Mary Kay Cosmetics is one of those companies with sales representatives all across the country. One of Mary Kay’s sales directors, Kathy Cottrill uses an interactive video email technology called Ving to communicate with her remote consultants about products, promotions, and sales. Cottrill’s messages let her consultants access the information at a time most convenient for them. Cottrill believes that the revenue increase is a direct result of the educational video messages she sends to her consultants.
Increasing alignment with company goals
Mission statements. Quarterly goals. Strategic plans. Many companies either have all of these components or a combination of the three. Goals drive outcomes, and successful outcomes ultimately increase profits, so it’s important that everyone in the company aligns with the strategy.
Videos are a very effective tool for engaging employees and clients and increasing awareness, understanding, and enthusiasm for your product/service.
Case study: ourselves
At our technology company, we regularly use video to communicate with clients. As part of our video series, VingTV, we create new video episodes twice a month that feature topics related to our software, such as tutorials and best practices. These videos are filmed in a unique and humorous way and increase client awareness about the benefits of using our software, Ving.
The top 6 ways video improve communication
So we’ve just examined two of the benefits of using video in business a little more closely. But there’s more! According to Engaging Employees with Video, here are the top 6 ways video improved communication in the various organizations surveyed:
- Improved communication with remote employees (76%)
- Increase alignment with company/organizational goals (58%)
- Our employees are more engaged with senior executives (44%)
- Increased attendance/participation (42%)
- Improved message retention (39%)
- Provided a consistent message to customers (31%)
Believing video is a powerful tool we need to use
While it’s easy for us to think that creating videos is just an optional “fun” workplace feature, it’s clear that video is a vital business tool to improve internal communication and increase employee engagement.
Professional communicators must stay on the cutting edge of technology and both encourage and implement those resources and tools that will improve communication, and, ultimately, the company’s bottom line.
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