3 Award-winning reasons to use videos on your intranet
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth millions — 1.8 million words to be exact, according to data from Forrester. Video is popular, it’s engaging, and it belongs on your intranet.
Wordstream data estimated that by 2019, internet video traffic would account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic. Now,
What’s the difference? Check out our Intranet vs internet article here.
The strength of video lies in its impact. Popular among those addicted to video-heavy sites like YouTube, or Instagram, a vast majority of your staff would much rather sit for a 1-minute video than read the same information presented on print. The content may hold the same records, but video injects a level of personality to the message that is not expressed in other formats.
For those struggling with engagement on their intranets, sharing and playing videos is great for collaboration, appealing to your more mobile staff and, best of all, easy to produce.
For organizations looking to integrate video into their IC strategy, a successful video is:
- Detailed but short, packing information into an easily digestible bite
- Clear, concise and focused on a specific purpose
- Memorable with quality content and audio and visuals
- Able to be shared, liked and commented on
Video done right can be a powerful medium that conveys relevant and engaging information.
Download the Interact Excellence Awards Annual 2019 today
An award-winning use of video
The 9thInteract Excellence Awards sees entries spanning small non-profits through to international brands, giving a unique insight into the success of those at the forefront of internal communications.
These awards hold a category designed just for the companies that brought their intranets to life with video, The Best Use of Video Award.
The Best Use of Video Award highlights those intranets that have made video a part of their everyday toolkit to push the boundaries of design and improve overall communication.Judged by a 9-strong panel of nine global intranet, communications and engagement professionals, this year’s entries showcased creative and successful video marketing campaigns:
- Best Use of Video winner – Wheatley Group, W.E. Connect
- Best Use of Video Runner-up – Travelex,The Lounge
- Best Use of Video Runner-up – Equinox, EQX Connect
Wheatley Group
Wheatley Group is Scotland’s leading housing, care, and property management group. They provide homes and services to around 250,000 people in 17 local authority areas across Central Scotland.
Employing over 2,400 staff in locations all over Scotland, it has never been more critical for Wheatley employees to stay in touch, share knowledge and collaborate.
Wheatley’s legacy intranet was built with software created before the first iPhone. A scattered workforce with inadequate software left Wheatley with an urgent need to connect and deliver information to their staff.
Wheatley is demographically and geographically diverse, with eight distinct but related organizations covering housing, property, and care.
To develop an intranet that would be relevant and engaging to all staff and that would be accessible on iPhones and iPads as well as on PCs, Wheatley’s communication team began to use video to engage and inspire.
While Wheatley’s comms team noticed an increased appetite for video content, they doubted their departments’ ability to produce this medium quickly and with quality.
Success meant the department needed to produce bite-sized video content that could to tell stories from across the organization, keep people in the picture and build a strong sense of community across their diverse workforce.
Tackling their primary source of information sharing, Wheatly decided to make mobile videos to complement their site photography and written news. News packages and vlogs were created to:
- Highlight work done by different teams
- Report on visits made by politicians to Wheatley projects
- Convey key message relating to the industry
Videos were kept short and to the point and were hosted on the front page of W.E. Connect for ease of access. A weekly teaser email was also sent to all staff, highlighting new content each week, effectively spreading the news.
An award-winning best video award
Wheatley has done a great job of not keeping their methods confined to internal communications. On top of their news videos and vlogs, they encourage staff to tell their own stories through video, giving them the right support and training.
Their video showing Shetland ponies visiting elderly customers was a great example of the power of visual storytelling. The animals were brought in to provide pet therapy for the folk, and it made a heart-warming piece. Not only did nearly 6,500 people watch this video, but it inspired people to try new things at work.
By getting staff on board, they empowered staff to start creating their own engaging content. This has multiplied the amount of video the company produces and provided easy to make and easily consumable material to all areas of the business.
These are well-crafted videos of human-interest stories, career tips, and company news – great ingredients for content that users want to see. Embracing video production and video content has proved a hit with the users of W.E. Connect. On average, a blog posted on W.E. Connect attracts around 100 hits, a news story around 130 – but their videos are watched in their thousands.
“W.E. Connect is not just how we communicate with staff – it is the heart of the organization. It contains the tools and information our colleagues need to do their jobs. It is an engagement tool. It underpins every major campaign. It is also a place for fun, to kick back, to share, to have a laugh and to say thank you. And it is transforming the way our 2,400 staff engage with one another.”
Laura Hood, CommunicationsWheatley Group Officer at
Travelex
Travelex is a global foreign currency company, operating in over 30 countries. Travelex is an established leading brand in foreign exchange.
With over 10,000 employees, the organization has worked hard to create an intranet that connects their entire workforce. Their intranet, ‘The Lounge,’ was born as a place where people can learn, discover, share and collaborate in all areas of the business.
Now in its second year, The Lounge team wanted to focus on how the content was being consumed in line with trends and demands. With video being listed as one of the more successful IC trends, the team decided to incorporate video into their intranet. However, their research found that 75% of the retail staff did not have audio on their computers.
To combat these audio problems, Travelex added subtitles to videos on the intranet, allowing them to be watched by anyone across the organization. This simple adjustment made a huge difference, with overwhelming feedback from colleagues showing that the inclusion of subtitles has changed the way they receive information and interact with communications.
Now, all video produced has subtitles included as standard.
An award-winning use of video
With this new format, the team launched the ‘Transform Your Uniform’ campaign. This was a call to the organization to contribute ideas for the overhaul of the company uniform.
Their ‘Transform your Uniform’ video was used to promote the revamp of the Travelex uniform. The final design of which will be a product of ideas, suggestions, and collaboration shared on The Lounge. The five-minute clip is an excellent example of how simple and effective videos can be.
The campaign gave a little glimpse into the workplace culture of the organization. The five-minute video delivers a very detailed message without overwhelming the viewer. It is a personable, accessible and easy-to-watch video which can be watched and understood by all global teams.
The ‘Transform your Uniform’ campaign received more than sixty comments and the activity of people interacting and commenting on the news stories has increased.
Not only are internal comms embracing video, but departmental heads are using this medium as a way of communicating updates, performances and interviewing key figures. Video has refreshed the way the intranet is used.
See more about Travelex’s journey to creating The Lounge here.
Equinox
Equinox, an American luxury fitness company, operates four separate brands – Equinox, PUREYoga, Blink Fitness and Soul Cycle. The company has its headquarters in New York City and employs more than 13,000 people, with 135 location within every major city across the U.S. in addition to sites in London, Toronto, and Vancouver.
In its 25-year history, Equinox had yet to experience an actual company-wide intranet for employees to share and disseminate information. Instead, they suffered:
- Poor search function
- Inconsistent document management
- Difficult navigation
While Equinox used training videos and user guides to help employees understand their new intranet, they needed dynamic, engaging and emotionally compelling videos to convey how EQX Connect was the new digital community.
Equinox knew the best way to grab the attention of their large workforce was through the production of quality videos. Employees were skeptical of the launch of yet another system they’ll need to navigate to find information. To create excitement around EQX Connect, the project team:
- Produced a series of short films to promote the launch
- Built a 2-minute intro video to EQX Connect designed to inform and inspire employees about the new system and how it acts as a digital hub for the latest in company news.
This video acts to increase user engagement not just for current users but for those people who are welcomed into the organization in the future.
An award-winning use of video
Equinox’s take on video successfully highlights the role of EQX Connect within the employee experience. These videos are not ordinary corporate videos. A stylish brand with a focus on design pushes their visual representations in a refreshing new direction.
Avoiding the usual clichés that usually occur in a corporate video, Equinox instead focused on the needs of its staff and offering solutions to support their work.
Their video strategy was a success, from outlining the role of EQX Connect in the organization to using the medium as a training platform.
The short films produced by the team received positive feedback from staff. They served to increase the profile of EQX Connect, to build culture, to inform and to be embraced by the organization as a whole.
“By creating excitement about the Intranet through a branded and compelling video, we plan to increase user engagement not only at the launch but also throughout the lifespan of EQX Connect.”
Henderson Chatargun, Product Manager
Congratulations to all the finalists for our Best Use of Video award. For a closer look at the tremendous success of all of our finalists, download our “Intranet Excellence Award Annual” available here.
