That wacky video with the cows in the airport. That holiday video about the animated cat. That swift video journey through a company’s storied history.
They’re all company culture videos.
Now, more than ever, people care about the values behind the brands they interact with, buy from, and work for. That’s where video comes in.
What is a Culture Video?
Culture videos are all about highlighting your brand’s culture and personality for prospects, customers, and potential employees. They help tell your brand story, so people get excited about doing business with you—as a customer, partner, or employee.
Benefits of Culture Videos
The exact benefits of your particular culture video will depend on the goal you’re creating your video to serve. For example, a recruiting video has different goals and associated benefits than a holiday video. Some of the more common benefits of culture videos are:
Increasing team morale
Improving recruitment results and fit
Expanding your audience
Building brand loyalty
Basically, it all comes down to increasing brand affinity. You want to show people who you are as a brand, and what you stand for, so they want to do business with you because they know and like you. Video offers a more direct way of communicating your culture than any other medium.
Watch and Learn
Vidyard’s own video experts Blake Smith and Mat King explain how to create an awesome culture video and break down one of their favorite examples to highlight what goes into a successful one.
Where to Use Culture Videos
Where can you share your company culture videos for maximum effect?
Website and Blog
Your website is a key place to post culture videos. But you need to make sure you choose the right section of your site based on the goals of the culture video you create.
For example, if you offer a service-based business and your culture video helps people understand exactly why they want to partner with you, it might make sense on your homepage. But if it’s a recruitment video, the homepage would not be a great fit.
The “About Us” section of your website is a great spot for culture videos, as are your “Careers” page, and your blog.
Social Media and Paid Social
The targeting options available on social media can make social channels and social ads great places to post culture videos. No matter what the goal of your video, you can target an appropriate audience, either on your owned channels or using paid ads.
If your culture video is part of a recruiting campaign, make sure to share the video to LinkedIn, as well as your other channels.
Your email list also gives you great opportunities for segmentation, so you can share company culture videos with the people most likely to be interested in them.
A culture video can be a great addition to an early email in your customer acquisition nurtures. A new subscriber doesn’t know you all that well yet, and a culture video can be just the thing to keep them on the path to becoming a customer.
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Types of Culture Videos
Holiday Videos
Holidays provide a great opportunity to get creative with your team. These scripted videos are a great fit for social channels, and can inspire loads of engagement and exposure. Winter holidays and Halloween tend to be popular options, though some companies find a great fit with videos for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and more.
About Page Videos
An about page video aims to serve the same general purpose as your about page text, but in a friendlier and easier-to-consume way. It’s a great place to share your brand origin story, or to highlight any unique accomplishments, awards, or impressive statistics about your company. Depending on your industry, you may also want to put a human face on your organization by introducing some of your employees.
Workplace Culture Videos
While these videos aim, obviously, to show off your workplace culture, don’t think of them as being exclusively targeted at potential employees. Prospective customers and partners may also want to know about your workplace culture before deciding whether to work with you.
Great concepts for workplace culture videos include “a day in the life” videos, where you showcase one day at your office, or talking head videos featuring interviews with employees.
HR and Recruiting Videos
HR and recruiting videos speak directly to employees, potential employees, or new recruits.
A talent team might use culture videos for onboarding, internal announcements, or workplace celebrations and milestones. Recruiting videos, on the other hand, provide a picture of what it’s like to work at your company, to encourage the right people to apply.
Remember that a recruiting video is not just about showing how great you are. It’s about providing an accurate picture of your company culture so you can encourage applications from people who will fit well with your team.
Behind-the-Scenes Videos
Going behind the scenes in your office or workplace is a great way to show people what you’re really all about. This type of culture video should be relatively unscripted, with a raw tone that lets viewers feel like they’re tagging along for an exclusive tour.
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How to Make a Culture Video
Here’s a simple process for how to make your own culture video:
Determine the goal and intended audience for your video. You need to know who you’re trying to reach and what message you want to convey before you can create an effective script.
Choose your format. Which kind of video makes sense based on your goal and audience?
Write your script. We’ll get into some best practices for your script in the next section. Keep in mind that for interviews or behind-the-scenes videos, your script will be more of a loose outline than actual lines for people to say.
Get the team together to review the script and practice the video. This a great chance to uncover anything that doesn’t flow smoothly, and for the team to help give the video more personality.
Record your video. Don’t panic if it you need a few takes to get it right.
Edit your best takes into a polished video. Share on the appropriate channels based on your goal.
Culture Video Best Practices
Show Personality
After all, this is what culture videos are all about. It’s your chance to provide a look behind the corporate veneer to showcase what your company stands for. What are your brand values? What makes your company unique? A culture video is your chance to answer these important questions.
A culture video shouldn’t look overly polished. It should feel like real insider communication between viewers and your brand. Don’t be afraid to include some bloopers.
Be Funny
Humor can go a long way to breaking down barriers and creating connection. And the type of humor you choose to use can say a lot about your brand personality. Are you subtly self-deprecating? Do you revel in your love of cheesy industry jokes? Embrace what feels right.
Be Real
Above all, a culture video must be honest. Don’t pressure employees into doing or saying things about your company that they don’t agree with 100%. It’s okay to write a line-by-line script for a sketch-type video, but if you’re asking employees to speak about their own experiences, your script should be limited to what questions you’ll ask.
Make sure your video sets the right tone for your particular business. If you’re going to ask employees to work loads of overtime, don’t say that you focus on work-life balance. Highlight the factors that truly make you appealing and unique.
Tell a Story
One great way to clarify your brand story is to ask and answer questions that start with “Why?” Why do you do what you do? Why do people want to work with you? Why do your loyal customers love you? Why should anyone else care? Try asking your employees, “Why do you work here?”
Once you have the answers to these questions, you can put together a video story that really highlights who you are as a brand, showcasing your purpose. Then you can use your script to build a narrative that brings people closer to your company in an interesting and engaging way.
Don’t Try to Sell
This is about your people and your culture, not your product. Your product or services might appear in your video, but this is not the place to tell people why they should buy. Instead, you want to intrigue people. A culture video should leave people wanting to know more about your brand.
The 9 Essential Types of Video Guide
Find out what types of video your business needs, how to make them, where they fit in the funnel, and more.
Get the Guide
Best Culture Videos
Here are some great examples of the culture video format in action.
Holiday Video: Vidyard
Yes, we’re biased on this one, but we’re pretty sure we hit it out of the park with this holiday video.
This quirky approach allowed us to let our customers and our community know how much we appreciate them while also showcasing our fun-loving brand personality.
Behind-the-Scenes Video: Plasticity
Plasticity Labs, a B2B company building a platform that connects employees, increases engagement, and develops the traits of the happiest, highest performing workplaces created a series of meet-the-team videos.
They created these behind-the-scenes videos for every member of their team as part of a strategy to showcase their own company culture and attract potential employees who would be a good fit for the team. Since Plasticity is all about elevating company culture, the videos also hint at how the company could help potential clients develop a strong culture, without a direct pitch.
Notice how they include some bloopers. This was an intentional strategy to show the human side of the brand and appeal to like-minded people who don’t take themselves too seriously.
Recruiting Video: Loyola University Maryland
In a different take on recruiting, Loyola University Maryland used personalized videos to notify prospective students that they’d been accepted to the university.
This unexpected use of video convinced more students to accept Loyola’s offer of admission, resulting in the largest first-year class size in recent history.
Find more great examples of culture videos in our Inspiration Hub.
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