Best Practices for Streaming Video to Employees
While many companies successfully use online video to market to customers, they don't tap the power of video to reach their own employees. As a webinar hosted on April 5 on StreamingMedia.com showed, a smart internal video strategy can produce big payoffs.
When it comes to internal video, many companies find they have too many cooks in the kitchen, said Philipp Karcher, an analyst with Forrester Research. Various departments -- such as publishing, creative, enterprise architects, marketing, corporate communications, and IT -- may all have experimented with video, leaving a messy mixture of systems in place.
What those companies need is a centralized system using a common platform. Here are four tips from Karcher to make that happen.
1. Build a cross-platform strategy that transcends traditional departments.
When creating an internal video system, include representatives from marketing, sales, human resources, corporate communications, IT, networking, and AV in your planning. They'll all bring up issues and needs that the others aren't aware of. Be sure to have executive support from the start. Getting buy-in from company leaders is crucial if the system is going to take off.
2. Remember that external video success factors also apply to internal video.
As with public-facing online content, an internal video system needs to put the right content in front of the right people at the right time. The content streamed to employees needs to be relevant to their work, have social features, be easily discoverable, and be available on a range of devices.
3. Plug into business processes to drive a video culture.
It's not enough to launch an internal video system and hope employees use it. No, the system needs to drive a culture change within the organization, working with different departments and offering real value. Show organizational support by connecting the internal video system to high-level events, such as addresses by the executive team.
4. Don't overlook content management.
Be sure that all videos uploaded are correctly tagged and organized. Have a system in place, so that everything can be stored and retrieved quickly. Also, build in a security layer so that all uploaded videos are approved by a manger before going live, then create a permissions system so that sensitive videos are only seen by approved staff.
One popular system for organizing internal videos is creating a library based on YouTube. Greg LaRoche, director of product marketing for Brightcove, took the second half of the webinar to talk about what's called "YourTube" portals. Employees are used to YouTube, so having a similar internal system makes training easy.
To hear more about forming an internal video strategy, or to dive deeper into creating a YouTube-style system, watch the recorded webinar. It will be hosted online for the next 90 days. It's free, but registration is required.