If the eyes are the windows to a person’s soul, then culture videos are the windows to your company’s. To put it a bit less dramatically, company stories can have a significant impact on how people perceive your brand.
By giving viewers a rundown of your values while showing them what it’s like to be a part of your organization, you can turn your videos into an effective communication tool that showcases the human side of your brand and builds trust with customers and employees alike.
But working on this type of content is not easy, and if you want to see your company culture videos live up to your expectations, you need to understand what makes them tick. In this piece, we’ll take a look at how the best video marketing agencies approach the process of creating these videos so that you can learn from the very best and make amazing culture videos of your own.
Let’s get started!
Understand and define your company’s mission, values, and vision
Your company is much more than just a list of products or services you offer and the number of sales you make: there’s something you stand for. But sometimes it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what that “something” is, so let’s break down the main elements that make up your company’s culture:
- Mission: a statement that encapsulates what your business does and how and why it does it. In essence, your mission speaks to your purpose and main objectives.
- Values: the beliefs and principles that drive a business and the moral guidelines that their employees believe in. More than that, the values your company stands for have a significant impact on both employee experience and the relationship you develop with your customers.
- Vision: what you want to achieve by combining your mission with your values. Your vision describes the desired long-term impact of your efforts and the effect they will have on your community, society, and the world.
Understand who you are reaching out to
Once you’ve figured out your mission, values, and vision you’ll want to showcase, it shouldn’t be hard to define your video’s target audience.
To some, this might sound like a secondary concern, but understanding your audience will help you determine your needs throughout production, make the process go more smoothly, and make the end piece more effective.
After all, if you know exactly who you’re trying to reach, you can tailor your message, your script, and every other element in your company culture video to make it more appealing to those people with whom you want to connect.
Select the right type of company culture video
Aligning your values and goals with your knowledge about your audience should give you everything you need to select a type of company culture video that speaks to them. Here are some of the most popular culture video types you can create for your company:
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Workplace culture
Workplace Culture videos offer you the opportunity to spotlight your workspace, your hardworking team members, and their work ethics. The goal is to give your audience a glimpse into what a typical day at your company looks like.
While these videos are usually aimed at potential employees, you should consider that prospects may also want to know more about your workplace culture before deciding to do business with you – especially if you use social media as a primary outreach avenue.
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Holiday or seasonal pieces
If you want to show the creative and fun side of your brand’s personality, then Holiday videos can be of great help. Moreover, you can express care to your customers and team members during a special holiday such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or convey good vibes around dates like Christmas or Halloween.
The best part about these videos is that they’re highly memorable and prevalent on social media because they aim to elicit emotions. Thus, they can attract a lot of engagement and exposure for your brand.
Include an “About us” page
Who doesn’t have an “About us” page on their website nowadays? Almost everyone does, and it’s no secret why: they give you an ideal place to showcase your brand’s story. However, a block of text isn’t enough to do justice to your company nowadays. But just like it happens with explainers and motion graphics videos, an About Us video follows an inherently friendly, easier-to-consume structure designed to help you reach and connect with your audience more efficiently.
About Us videos can be used to share your company’s origin story or impressive statistics, celebrate important accomplishments, and even introduce some key members of your team to put a human face to your brand.
Recruitment
Recruitment videos address employees, potential team members, and new recruits directly to encourage them to apply and become a part of your company, but they can be just as effective as part of your video strategy to tell potential customers what your workforce is all about. These videos provide your audience with key information about the company’s culture and the role you’re recruiting for.
It’s important to show your audience what it would be like to work for your company and portray the experience in a way that appeals to the right candidate. It can be good to include employee testimonials and highlight your uniqueness to pique the viewer’s interest.
A recipe for perfect company culture videos
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Be authentic
Honesty and transparency are the core of what makes a company culture video successful. For this reason, it’s better not to hire actors and have your own employees be the stars of your video.
It’s also important to avoid pressuring them into doing or saying something about your company that they aren’t comfortable with because it will show. You can certainly write a script and questionnaire outlining your video’s progression and the touch-points you’d like to cover, but it’s best if your questions and setups merely guide your employees on what you want them to talk about while letting them express themselves in their own words and style.
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Tell a story
Stories are a powerful thing. They’re effective attention-grabbers that can bring people closer to your company in an engaging way. For your company culture video, you want to highlight who you are as a brand and showcase your purpose, so story-driven culture videos should focus on answering questions like:
- Why do you do what you do? What drives you?
- Why do people want to work with you?
- Why do your employees work there?
- What was their experience like as new hires?
- What does a typical workday look like?
- How did the company start? What’s its vision?
Mind video length
There’s no point in wasting your efforts making an unnecessarily long company culture video that no one will watch all the way through. Let’s be real, few people would want to spend 10 minutes watching a video about a company—although YouTube and Facebook videos can be the exception to the rule.
So, as with most marketing pieces, it’s best to try and create videos no longer than 2 to 5 minutes to keep your viewers’ attention long enough to deliver your message without overstaying your welcome. It’s also important to be clear and to the point from the beginning, hook them in with a charming premise, and keep them watching by continuously poking at their interests.
Include a CTA
While you aren’t outright trying to sell something when you work on culture videos – there are better styles for that – prompting viewers to action at the end of your piece can be a great way to leverage the attention you are getting and deepen the brand-client interaction. Think of a subtle and effective CTA at the end of a culture video as the cherry on top of delicious ice cream… you don’t have to have it, but it’s great when it’s there.
A call to action (CTA) is an item that encourages your viewers into taking your desired action and directs them exactly where you want them to go. Whether you want them to fill in an application form, share the video with friends, or just visit your website, your CTA can take them there as long as it’s clear and short. Use about 3 or 5 words and include power words such as “easy” or “fast” to instruct them on the next steps.
Wrapping up
Company culture videos’ increasing popularity stems from how effective they are at nurturing customer-brand connections. They help you tell viewers exactly who you are and what you stand for, making it easier for potential hires and customers alike to decide if you’re a good fit for them.
As you’ve probably seen from this post, there’s not just one way to do it right, but rather a set of vital aspects that come into play and that you should consider before and while making your video.
Hopefully, you now have all the tools to start creating fantastic company culture videos for your brand!
