Imagine you’re expecting a baby and starting to worry about what benefits your company offers.
You have questions like: How much time off will you get? How much pay can you expect during that time off? What will your medical plan cover before and after the baby is born? What kinds of benefits are available to parents to make balancing work and life easier? And so many more.
Life events like this can be challenging and stressful—but feeling confident in your understanding of benefits would be a huge relief.
Yet, often getting answers to those questions can be arduous. Your company’s intranet is full of jargon, confusing policies, and long pages with buried information. Frustrated, you reach out to a person for help.
Now imagine your company proactively sent you short-form, 2-minute videos at just the right time – one with an overview of the policy and time off when you’re thinking about having a baby, one explaining your medical benefits when you’re expecting, another right before the birth with what you’ll need to do when the baby arrives, and one before you return to work to ease your anxiety about the transition – to name a few.
Why are short-form videos a great tool for reaching employees?
Well, the digital landscape is witnessing a significant shift towards short-form video content, driven by platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
While videos are hardly a new medium, the short-form format trend is fueled by:
• Shrinking attention spans:
Research suggests that the average attention span has dwindled to approximately 47 seconds. (Source: “The Psychology of Short-Form Content: Why We Love Bite-Sized Videos“)
• Fast-paced consumption habits:
Consumers are increasingly seeking quick, digestible content that fits into their busy lives. (And employees are consumers, too.)
• The effectiveness of concise messaging:
Short videos allow for focused storytelling, quickly capturing attention and conveying key information.
• The changing workforce:
Digital native Gen Zers (born 1997-2012) are entering the workforce, regularly consume video content, and strongly prefer it over written text.
Digital marketing is the obvious place for videos – but not the only place.
Short-form videos are transforming internal communications at companies by:
• Optimizing employee engagement:
Concise videos cater to limited time and boost information retention by up to 65% compared to text. (Source: “Short Form Videos Are Revolutionizing Internal Communications – MediaMobz“)
• Improving accessibility:
Employees can watch videos at their convenience, on any device.
• Delivering targeted messages:
Short videos enable focused communication on specific topics or initiatives.
We recently partnered with a tech company of over 18,000 employees to pilot a series of short-form videos aimed at clarifying the Benefits topics generating the most employee questions to their help center. After identifying the top five topics to address, we conceptualized the videos, scripted and storyboarded them, and enlisted our colleagues to film segments.
From there, we edited the footage in low-cost tools and produced drafts for the client’s review. Some drafts required complete reworks, while others only needed minor tweaks.
To maximize insights, we intentionally used a variety of formats to test what resonated most effectively.
Our top lesson learned: Making videos isn’t that hard if you take a scrappy approach
They shouldn’t feel like high-production corporate videos; your employees will see right through those. Get young, creative talent to help you – and give them flexibility to try fun, of-the-moment approaches.
While we have loads of insights into what will make it successful for your business, here are some of our other big take-aways that you can apply to your short-form video efforts:
- Plan for exactly how the videos will be used:
Where will the video live? What text will be around it? How will people find it? Answers to these questions can impact the video itself. - Enlist amateur talent who can be natural on camera – and will have time to reshoot:
The talent doesn’t have to be professional but should be comfortable in front of the camera. Plus be realistic up front about the time commitment involved. In the course of production, you may realize that you need new shots, and your talent will need to re-film. - Balance perfecting the script and experimenting with the video production:
Write enough script to shape a solid draft but leave room for the delivery to be authentic. And expect to re-record when you figure out what will improve the video. - Don’t count on AI to do everything…yet:
AI isn’t quite there yet, especially for voiceovers. But it’s getting better quickly. - Experiment and test:
As you make your first few videos, you’ll learn a lot about scripting, production, and talent. Include a testing phase in your initial video efforts to uncover and refine what resonates with your employees.
If you would like to learn more or try short form videos for your company, please reach out! We would love to partner with you.
Or should we practice what we preach and turn this article into a short-form video? Ooh. Great idea!
And, if you enjoy this content, please consider following Cortico-X on LinkedIn for more insights on experience strategy and transformation.
Adele Budovsky
As an Engagement Manager and Associate Principal in the Cortico-X practice, Adele works with clients across industries to transform the customer experience.
