Does this sound like you? You’re in charge of internal communications at your organization. You have many employees, spread across multiple offices. Many employees are currently working remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It’s your responsibility to ensure that all relevant internal employee communication reaches the right people at the right time, and so you coordinate the distribution of weekly CEO updates, monthly newsletters, ad hoc office notices, training, and other important messaging, mostly via email.
But something’s not quite right. You’re hearing feedback that employees either skim or ignore your emails, but you have no real way to prove it. Even worse, remote employees are starting to feel disconnected from the organization, despite your team’s efforts to ramp up employee communications during the pandemic.
Sound familiar? Maybe you’re living out this scenario today, or have experienced something similar. The truth is, COVID-19 has only highlighted a pre-existing issue in internal communications strategy: email is no longer enough. To reach employees through cluttered inboxes and extended distances of time and space, you’ve got to embrace the digital, convenient, and mobile: and that means using video.
Let’s take a closer look at what video in internal communications means for your organization.
How using video in internal communications can improve employee engagement
Using video in internal communications can improve employee engagement by:
- Highlighting your company’s culture by using a “human” medium
- Communicating with employees in a more authentic way
- Condensing complex information into a more consumable format
Studies have shown that face-to-face communication is the most successful internal communication tool to get your message across. Video and video conferencing tools help to bridge this gap when physical face-to-face communication isn’t possible by providing your messaging with a more authentic and human feel. This is especially important when communicating with remote employees, who lack any kind of physical connection to your organization.
Additionally, video is a medium that’s easily consumable by employees. Videos in general are more engaging and memorable than walls of text, and they can be viewed on the go when it’s convenient, making them an easy way to quickly and efficiently deliver the right information to your workforce.
So how can you start using video in your internal communications? Let’s take a look at a few best practices.
Do’s and don’ts of using video in internal communications
Maybe the idea of using video in internal communications seems a little daunting. Wouldn’t it involve so much more work to produce high-quality videos? And would those videos really deliver results?
To help you out as you consider whether video is right for your organization, here’s our list of do’s and don’ts:
Do’s for internal communication videos
- Do use human faces. Don’t be too abstract in your videos—the whole point is to be more authentic. Try to keep your video scripts as conversational, personalized, and spontaneous as possible.
- Do measure the effectiveness of your videos, and by extension, your entire internal communications strategy. More on that in the next section.
Don’ts for internal communication videos
- Don’t stress about producing top-quality videos. Use the best technology you have, think about proper lighting, and be prepared, but don’t waste time adding unnecessary effects. No professional camera? Use a smartphone!
- Don’t feel like every internal communication message you send has to include a video. In fact, it probably shouldn’t. Learn more about how you can evaluate different communication channels for different kinds of messaging.
- Don’t just limit video to your top-down internal communications—ensure that your employees also have access to video conferencing tools for horizontal communication, such as online meetings.
How to evaluate your internal video communications strategy
Just sending the occasional video or two isn’t enough to improve employee engagement. In order to ensure success, you’ll have to constantly optimize and measure your internal communication videos, and by extension, your entire internal communications strategy.
Lean on your IT team to help you measure the effectiveness of your internal communications. Often, they can help you to understand how employees are using different platforms, how long they spend on different devices, which apps they use, and which websites they visit. With this knowledge in hand, you can better understand where to reach your employees and how your strategy is performing. From there, you can make changes to optimize how often you send videos, determine which times are best to send, and understand what types of messaging result in the most engagement.
Improve employee engagement with internal communications software
You’re never only limited to your IT team to evaluate the success of your internal communications videos. You can also use purpose-made internal communications software, like our intranet with built in multi-channel messaging capabilities. Our software allows internal communications professionals to send the right content to the right audience at the right time, on the channels of their choice. Reach also includes activity dashboards and advanced reporting capabilities so that you can gain valuable insights into the success of your messaging. From there, you’ll be able to make the changes you need to improve employee engagement. What’s more, Reach’s dedicated support team is ready to share strategy and planning best practices to help you achieve your goals.
Interested in learning more about how internal communications software can help you? Book a demo now. If you’re not quite ready to take a demo, but are considering making improvements to your internal communications strategy, why not take our free internal communications assessment? You’ll be able to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of your current program and will receive free resources to help you make your own improvements.
