The Rise of Video for Collaboration in the Social Enterprise
By Julian Steinforth, Expedition PR
Video is increasingly used by marketers. According to invisia.com 100 million Internet users watch an online video each day. It is also a powerful tool for internal communications and collaboration and will further gain importance in the next years. Last week, Business Development Institute and PR Newswire organized a summit on The Future of Collaboration & Internal Communications at the Graduate Center of City University in New York. One of the sessions, given by Aaron Walt of Kaltura, was on the benefits of using video in the social enterprise.
Companies have adopted the use of social media for internal and external communications. Social media platforms enable companies to have a direct dialogue with all types of stakeholders, including employees and customers. Tools like Twitter and Facebook, among others, allow companies to inform about topics and engage with their audiences in ways that were not possible before. Now that the use of social media is common practice, it is time to take the next step: employing video for internal collaboration.
Incorporating video messages and video conferences into the daily routine will open up new possibilities for stakeholder engagement. It will change the way we communicate and collaborate.
The quality of self-made videos will continuously improve in the next years as new camera technologies and editing programs become available.
Let’s take a look at some of the areas that will benefit from using video:
- Internal collaboration: Many large companies already have become a “Social Enterprise”, an organization that uses social media channels to do business. They utilize platforms such as Jive and Yammer as social collaboration tools. Those platforms connect employees, give real-time updates and provide the ability to chat and collaborate on projects. Short videos from tradeshows or offsite client sites can inform colleagues about ongoing events and strengthen the relationship among team members.
- CEO communications: According to Forbes, 59% of executives would rather watch video than read text. Their employees don’t think differently. They like to get short video messages as well. Traditionally, the executive management provides a business update via email newsletters and web conferences. Screening short video messages are a more personal approach to business updates. It is also a great way to follow the CEO on his or her travel and send short messages when meeting with clients, partners and employees around the world.
- Training: Companies started using web based training modules for some time. With video, they can further enhance training programs and allow employees to take classes on demand, at a time that works best for them.
According to Shannon K. Murphy of 3Play Media, video content is highly engaging for all types of audiences because it appeals to both auditory and visual senses. Some companies are already using video marketing to engage with external audiences with huge success.
The next step is to adopt video more broadly for internal communications and collaboration.
Bye-bye long PowerPoint presentation, hello video.