Employee-Generated Content: Creating a Video First Strategy  ## Metadata - Author: [[Social Media Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: Employee-Generated Content: Creating a Video First Strategy - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/d1ad5d74-e922-4021-bd4b-67eeceb84625 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Why Employee Content Matters** - Employee-generated content boosts engagement, talent attraction, and product amplification. - It humanizes brands, showing behind-the-scenes and authentic voices for credibility and reach. Transcript: Michael Stelzner First thing I want to ask you is the why question. Why should businesses focus on employee-generated content? Said a different way, if this is done well, what's the upside? Melissa Laurie Well, employee generated content, firstly, it's evolved over the years and now it's just become a must have for companies. It's a really cool core part of their brand strategy. And the way that we like to think about it at Oystole Media is that there's three really big reasons why companies need to be investing in employee-generated content. The first part is that it activates employee engagement. And there was a recent study that was done where it actually showed that 77% of employees are actually disengaged at work. And this is costing the global economy $8.8 trillion. And the way that I like to think about this is, I'm sure we've experienced this in our company, whether that we know someone that's like this, or maybe we've personally been like this, That we're the silent employees. We might not be actively looking for another role, but we're becoming a little bit disengaged. And this has been a big, I guess, growing concern for companies off the back of COVID and now with hybrid work as well. So the workplace is really changing. The second big reason with why companies are investing in employee generated content is that we all have a big common problem and it doesn't matter if you're a small company or a really Large company and that is attracting top talent. So if you are a large company, you might be thinking, okay, well, Microsoft or Google or Meta, they've got the big brand name that's going to attract these top talent. But if you think about it, Meta's competing with Google, Google's competing with Microsoft, et cetera. So we can't just rely on a LinkedIn post anymore or another platform just to post our job advertisement. We really need to be showing what is behind the scenes of our company. This is something that we also do at our company. We create a lot of employee-generated content to show what it's like to work at Osterly Media. And there was a recent study that also came out that 58% of job seekers are now searching on social media for information about a prospective employer. Is changing with Gen Z and then when Gen Alpha is coming through the ranks as well. So we need to be thinking about how we're promoting what it's like to work at our company to attract this top talent and also retain talent as well. And the next final part with why employee generated content is so crucial for your business is that it's a really powerful way that you could actually amplify your products. And one brand that comes to mind that does this really well is the beauty retailer Sephora. So they actually work with their people to talk about what are some of their favorite products. So just think about this, instead of outsourcing, creating all this video content, you could actually work with people internally in your business to talk about their favorite product Or service and really start to activate their voices. And it's a really powerful way to amplify what you do as a brand and create a voice rather than it's coming from the company voice, but it's coming from your people, which is really engaging. ([Time 0:02:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8b3af500-8d09-4531-b547-42f855cdbd21)) - **Editorial Control for Content** - Use an editorial process where employees submit videos and the company posts them. - This controls quality and consistency while respecting employee voices. Transcript: Michael Stelzner With the right training, you could get anyone in the company to represent you adequately. And just look to the young people that happen to live and breathe video. Is that really what I'm hearing you say? Melissa Laurie Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so moving into the planning phase, so whether it's you that's leading on this project or maybe that's someone else in your company, maybe it's your social media team. So what you want to do is align on what the content themes would be. Because imagine this, imagine if you just started saying to your team members, let's start creating employee-generated content. And so people might get excited, they start creating these videos and you get them back and they're not good. And they don't align with the themes that you want to focus on. So it becomes a really awkward conversation on whether you use the videos or not. If you use them, they could reflect badly in your brand. If you don't, then it can create an awkward relationship with some of your colleagues. ([Time 0:10:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7158735a-19e5-4d9e-bf9f-af8d1d4de90a)) - **Pick Three Content Themes** - Define three content themes: who we are, education, and work-related stories. - This guides employees to produce impactful and relevant video content aligned with company goals. Transcript: Melissa Laurie Could mean content pillars as well. And so what we would recommend is three content themes. And I could just get some thought starters here just to help with coming up with some ideas. So one content theme for your business could be, who are we? Or about the people that work at your company. So this could be videos which are like the day in the life, showing what it's like to have this role. And this really helps work in two ways. Firstly, if you think back how I mentioned about that recruitment strategy, you're showing what it's like to work at your company. And the other thing is about retention. Michael Stelzner You're actually spotlighting people's voices in your company. So you're sharing what their experience is like. You said something important earlier that I think we need to key in on, which is that you don't have to have your employees post these on their profile. You could actually post these on the company profile. This might be something we should just spend a second on. Are we curating this from the employees to publish them on our profile? Is that generally what we're doing here? Or are we also encouraging them to post them on their own personal profiles? Melissa Laurie What we encourage is that the employees will submit the videos to the company and the company will post on their own business profiles. Michael Stelzner I love that. And I think that's an important distinction between what a lot of people might think about when they think of employee generated content. This is almost got an editorial process to it, right? Where there's a review and there is potentially feedback and all this kind of stuff so that you can comfortably control what you choose to publish and you get to publish it on the company Page or feed or whatever the heck you call it, which I think is kind of cool. All right. So you said there were three themes that you recommend, three content themes. The first one was like the day in the life, which focuses on who are we, who works here. What's the next one? Melissa Laurie So the next one I would suggest is education. So you can talk about sort of trends or insights or share educational content about your product or service. So a company that does this well is Salesforce. So they actually have people in their company, they're creating employee generated content that are talking about some of their tools. So I think that that could be a great angle for many companies when they're creating this style of content as well. And then the final content theme could also be about your work. So this could be about sharing case studies, maybe it's your winning strategy with what you do. So there's sort of three really big angles that could be a good starting point with a business owner that wants to get started with employee generated content. Okay, ([Time 0:11:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/00e8b802-9915-4265-8c60-1851788e9645)) - **Simple Brand Guidelines** - Set simple brand guidelines with do's and don'ts to maintain quality without stifling creativity. - Include rules about text style, filming locations, and language use to protect brand image. Transcript: Michael Stelzner Unacceptable and all that kind of fun stuff, right? Because you're going to have stuff all over the board without this, right? Melissa Laurie Yeah, of course. So you want to give some thought to your brand guidelines. Now, do not make the mistake and think that this needs to be like a 12 page document. We do not want to stifle creativity and scare off people in your business. So just think about just some of the basic things. So some things could be like the type of text that you want on the video. So we know that when you add big text on the video, that it's a really great way to engage someone as they're scrolling. So you might just want people to use some classic style, which might be black and white, or maybe you say to the people that are taking part in this program that you're happy for it to be Quite colorful and for them to pick their own style. So just give some guidance on that. And that just helps with the look and feel of the videos that are coming back. Something else that you might consider is just some of the basic things just to include in, say, like a do's and don'ts table. So you can create a table. It's the do's of things you could do and also the don'ts. So a don't could be maybe you don't want them filming in a certain area in your office, for example. Another don't could be no swearing in the video. I know it sounds obvious, but it's good just to cover that off. So just give it some thought and think about a few things in each column for do's and don'ts. And then as you go on this journey, this might evolve. And ([Time 0:15:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f7bad566-ea6d-4735-9a2f-00783853e6d5)) - **Streamline Video Collection** - Use project management tools like Monday.com for video submissions and feedback. - This streamlines collection and review, avoiding chaos from disparate file sharing methods. Transcript: Michael Stelzner Someone's finished the video, how they actually get it submitted or whatever? Melissa Laurie Yeah. So as we touched on a moment ago, that this content would be going on your business profiles, whether that's TikTok, Instagram, even post on LinkedIn, where we're relevant as well. And so you need a process with how you're going to get all this content. And you might be thinking, okay, I'll use Google Drive or WeTransfer or another Dropbox, etc. But it can be confusing and become a little bit messy. So what we use in our company and what we advise our client partners is Monday. It's a project management platform. I know that some companies might use Asana or something else. But with Monday, you can set up a dashboard and give your people access and they can directly upload the video there. So just imagine you've got a nice dashboard or the videos are getting added. And then you can also have a section for captions and hashtags so that people can also be adding that into the dashboard. Then what you can do in these programs as well is that you can then directly give feedback on the videos if there is anything that needs to change or let people know if the videos are approved. And this is just going to save you so much pain and headache because it'll streamline how you collect all the content. Love it. Michael Stelzner Okay. What I heard you say is the first really parts ([Time 0:17:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a784c8ad-0b80-4115-8bea-590645dcf58b)) - **Train For Engaging Videos** - Train employees thoroughly on engaging video techniques like hooks and pattern interruptions. - Encourage fast key message delivery and dynamic visuals to capture attention quickly. Transcript: Melissa Laurie All about training your people about how to film these videos and there's a lot here this is probably the biggest meatiest part so you will want to look at carving out probably a day, which Is what we do. We'll train companies for a day on this step. So just don't overlook what you need to go over here. So where you want to start with this is actually letting your team know about the content themes that you've landed on so that they understand what are the themes and also the why. Like why are you suggesting that they create videos on these themes now just to be clear they don't need to create videos on every single theme there might be a theme that they're really Excited about so just give them that space for creativity the next thing that you need to consider in this part is actually what makes a video very engaging So you need to train your people On what makes a video part performing. And there's certain things that you can include such as pattern interruption. So when you're filming videos, you can do certain things like where you have a lot of quick cuts in the video. I'm sure a lot of us have seen this, where you see that there's a video that's stitched together and there's different movement that's happening. This is a strategy to hold the viewer's attention. Or another example could be, I'm sure that we've seen this, where someone's filming and they're walking around. So just think that the background is changing so it makes the video a lot more interesting rather than someone just sitting face to camera. So there's sort of some of the elements with what you need to consider and educate your team members on. Real quick on this. Michael Stelzner There's some things that I think we can dig in on here. First of all, in an ideal world, you're training people and maybe you've even got a little course with videos that've pre-recorded that they can walk through that can demonstrate these Things, right? Like here's an example of one that is very boring, but here's the exact same one where it's like maybe a slightly better because of these things and you could show it off. This is the area where I think some people are going to struggle, right? Because if they don't actually regularly create short form video, they're not going to know to do all these things, right? And obviously this matters to the business because the more engaging the video is, the more it'll be shown to more people because that's how the algorithm works, right? So let's talk about the hook a little bit because I know a lot of people struggle with the first couple seconds of the video. Do you have any insights on that? Melissa Laurie We refer to it as the first frame. So just imagine someone is scrolling on social media. It doesn't matter what platform it is, right? We've got a moment to earn that person's attention. And so when we think about that first frame, it's the visual, like what's happening there. It could be that if you add that big text on screen, so that could also encourage people to watch the video. It could also be the caption that you use. So there's all these different elements. So really think about what is that first frame or the opening hook. So you might see a lot of videos where there's a bit of movement, like something happens and that sparks curiosity. Also with what you say at the start and the speed that you say it. Sometimes people can be a little bit slow to get into the start of their video. So think about how you can get your key message across quite quickly. And a way that you can do this is just to speed up that opening part to earn the viewer's attention at the start. So a few things that you can do there. ([Time 0:19:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a5b6e60d-7d56-4a39-80b3-336530587152)) - **Example: Best Job Video** - Melissa shares an example video theme: "Why this is the best job in the world," with multiple employee responses. - This provides variety, engagement, and reinforcement through alternating clips and repeated questions. Transcript: Michael Stelzner So people in the first few seconds, so people can imagine what something like this might sound like, even though they're not going to obviously see what you're doing. Melissa Laurie So we're working with a university at the moment and we're creating their employee generated content and we're working with some of their teachers. And so this could apply, this opening hook could apply to many different industries. So I'll share this one, but we're using the opening hook with why this is the best job in the world. And so straight away, that's like, oh, people will be thinking, well, why is this the best job? And what we're doing is, and I suggest really consider creating this video style as well, because it's a really good one to get started with, quite simple, is that we've actually created Five questions and we've sent it to six different teachers. And they're all filming a video face to camera answering these questions. And then what we're doing is cutting up the videos and stitching it together. So imagine you see this video, it's why this is the best job in the world. And we'll have one person respond, then the next person, then the next person, and so forth. And so that's just an example of a really powerful opening hook. The second thing we've got pattern interruption because we're changing the scenes and someone else is responding to the question in their own style and sharing different value. Michael Stelzner Question real quick on why this is the best job in the world. Are we stating those? Are we publicly saying that in words or is it just the text on the screen? Are you having the teacher repeat those words? I'm just curious. Yeah. Melissa Laurie Yeah. Great question. So what we advise is that the teacher would repeat that, those words. So why this is the best job in the world. And then we would choose whichever one, whichever clip is probably the most engaging because people will show up a little bit differently. So we'll look at their sort of their background and then we'll choose whoever is the most engaging at the start. And they would actually say that at the start. And then if it's a longer video, let's say that, as I mentioned, there's six people sharing their opinion. We might repeat that question, say by the third or fourth video. So ([Time 0:24:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/254b3a74-d0f8-48c4-b07a-a9ef07cac765)) - **Find Content Inspiration** - Use LinkedIn, industry news, podcasts, or ChatGPT to find topic ideas. - Position your team as thought leaders by sharing relevant industry trends and insights. Transcript: Michael Stelzner To create content. Melissa Laurie There's a lot of ways that you can get inspired. So in terms of education, if we look at that content theme, you could look at different publications and see what are sort of the latest industry trends are happening. So if I take the example of if you're in the marketing landscape, for example, you might follow certain people or brands on LinkedIn and they're sharing some updates. Or on LinkedIn, there's the trending news updates as well. So you can keep abreast of that. There's other articles or your podcasts that you can listen to just to find that information. And then you can be using that and sharing that in your videos. Also, another way could just be using ChatGPT and asking ChatGPTT what is the five things that are trending in social media today and getting that information. And then you could position yourself or your team can as a thought leader. I think the way that you could consider it is like you're the news outlet, like you're giving that information directly to your audience and you're positioning yourself as a thought Leader in the industry. So there's just a few ways with how you can get started with thinking about different ideas. Okay, this ([Time 0:27:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f6f330fd-e895-4e12-ad5b-053b0e93dc60)) - **Group Training Builds Confidence** - Conduct in-person training sessions where employees script and film practice videos. - Facilitate group feedback to build skills and confidence before independent filming. Transcript: Michael Stelzner Or is this more of a self-service thing where you train the employees and hopefully they just go off and do it on their own? Okay. Melissa Laurie So with the produce phase, just imagine that you're in a room together or your conference room or at your office, and you really want to carve out time to do this. So you would go through this motion of sharing how to come up with different content ideas. Everyone will come up with different content ideas. The next part is that you'd want them to script it out. So there's a lot of value with typing it out or writing it out. So you would look at what is your hook, what's the body of the video, and if there's a core to action. We use a template in our company. So you use a template to craft this. And then back to your question, Mike. So what you would want is that everyone actually films a video in this training, at least one or two. And so they actually get some of the reps in with filming the content. And then if people are open to it and we advise that you do this, then you'd want to share the videos with everyone. Like let's say you've got a projector, you can put it on a big screen and you can give everyone input or support with their videos that they have created. So it is important that, yes, they learn how to film in this training. But then after it, they'll be on their own with filming the videos and then they would submit back to the company. And also ([Time 0:28:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e9795f29-d330-477b-95ab-4e2c631895f7)) - **Simplify Video Editing** - Use easy editing apps like CapCut to teach basic trims, audio fixes, and text overlays. - Decide if employees submit raw or fully edited videos based on skill, reserving final edits for a dedicated editor. Transcript: Michael Stelzner Obviously some people are really gifted at editing short form videos, you know, more than others. Melissa Laurie Yeah. So the editing tool that we use at Oysterly is Cupcut. There's a free version. It's brilliant. I know there's other editing platforms out there, but we love it. So you can download the free version or there's premium and you get it on your phone and that's where you can edit. So you'd want to just teach your people how to snip the video. So just imagine that you're setting up and you're doing, say, like a face to camera video. You might have a part at the start of the video that you don't want. So you need to snip the start and the end. There's also different tactics with actually improving the audio as well. So just imagine that you're doing, say, a day in the life and you're walking around the office showing how you get set up for work and what the lunchroom looks like. So you might want to remove some of the background noise as well. The other thing is you want to teach people with how they can actually put that text on screen, which again, you can do in CapCut. So you want to share or carve out some time with this produce section, just about how to do some basic editing of the videos. Now I'm going to just share two different options here. So option one is that you can encourage your people or your team to edit the videos so they can just clean up the video and set the start and the end and pull the cuts together to create one Final video and then they can share it with you. And we call this a clean version, there's no text on screen. And then what you can do is when you get the video back, if something needs to be tweaked or edited out, it's a lot easier because you can sort of just snip it out. And then that means that you can then add any text on screen that you want, like the subtitles. That's one option. Option two is that you encourage your employees to do the final video. So that would mean adding any text on screen. So such as that big text that we spoke about at the start of the video, maybe it's subtitles as well, and then you're getting the final version. The challenge here is that sometimes the text might be too low or too high. There might be a spelling mistake. And that means that you have to go back to that person, ask them to change the video. So just consider those two different options. You might want to start with the clean version style and you could do the final editing, or you might go with option two. I ([Time 0:30:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e87af4d-2c00-444f-9cef-08671d498c56)) - **Promote And Boost Videos** - Promote videos with captions and hashtags on multiple social platforms. - Boost key videos with a small ad budget (~$100) to increase reach and gather performance data. Transcript: Melissa Laurie And produce. Yeah. Okay. What's the third part? Okay. So the final part is promote. And so there's a few elements here. So firstly, you get the videos back. Let's say they go into a Monday dashboard or another dashboard. So you need to look at the captions and hashtags and make sure that's all ready to go. And then you'll start posting on your social channels. So you can post the same video if it's on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube so that you can start getting it out. So one consideration that you might have is that you might want to boost these videos so you can put some media budget behind so that you're getting more views on your videos. I wouldn't overlook this because imagine that your team have put in all this work to create all these videos. It's worth considering giving the videos a little bit of a boost so that it's giving them a positive feedback loop with how the videos are performing. So that's one thing to consider. And it also means that you get access to a lot more reporting just to see how the videos are working as well when you boost the videos. Michael Stelzner Just out of curiosity, like for people that don't know about that, because maybe they're just pure organic shop, how much money are we talking about? And yeah, just give us a sense of, I mean, when I think of boost, I think of Facebook because obviously you can boost posts, but are we talking about like just putting a small amount of money Behind these? Yes. Melissa Laurie Yeah. Like a hundred bucks. Yeah. If that, you know, it could even be less. So I'm a big believer that you've got your, your content, your content needs to be good. It needs to be engaging. And then you can just give it a little bit of a boost with a small ad budget just to get the video out there more and more exposure as well. So yes, start off small. You do not need to spend a lot of money. And then you get a lot of data as well with reporting just to see which videos are working well, what content themes. ([Time 0:34:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4bed30ea-9f3b-4654-b563-d22fa8a30d43)) - **Incentivize Without Pressure** - Incentivize employees with rewards and recognition to maintain motivation. - Avoid requiring personal profile shares or tagging; keep content primarily on company channels for unique brand value. Transcript: Michael Stelzner Talk about the employee role once this thing is published. If anything, what is expected of the employee? Are they expected to share it to their personal profile or are they getting tagged somehow? Or like, talk to me about that. Melissa Laurie You touched on a good point. So we want to keep the employees incentivized as well, because if you start creating this program in your business, it's a really big benefit for your employees because it's a new skill That they're learning. In fact, I think it's a life skill to learn how to develop video editing and coming up ideas, et cetera. So you want to keep people motivated and engaged. And so one thing that you can do is incentivize your employees. Something that a lot of the companies do that we work with, they will often give them a voucher. For example, we're working with a hotel brand. So they give them a $100 voucher that they could use towards staying at one of the hotels. In my company, we do a virtual trophy and a voucher. It's just something fun where we vote on our favorite video. Michael Stelzner Do you give everybody one or do you just give it to the ones that get published? I'm just curious. Melissa Laurie We actually, all the videos will get published, but we do a voting system and we will share our favorite video of the month. And this all comes down to, we think about like the technique the person used, is it a different video style? Have they done something a little bit different outside their comfort zone? And then we all vote. And then I've just gotten an image of Canva, which is the virtual trophy. And we put their face in the trophy and we award it to them because we've got quite a diverse team around the world. And then I also give them a hundred dollar voucher. That's nice. So that's what we do. And it works in our business. And it just, again, if it goes back to that retention, it's just spotlighting the different voices in your business. And just something personally that I've learned with having remote teams as well. I mean, our head office is in Singapore, but we do have some remote teams is that it brings everyone together because everyone is seeing everyone else's videos on our social platforms And it connects us. So you'll see this magic come to life in your business as well, especially when we think about hybrid work. And then something else that you touched on, Mike, is just about tagging. Wouldn't advise with tagging employees I don't think it's necessary I don't think it's necessary to get them to share on their profiles either just think about it for your business Just having that content on your profile so that it's unique to what you're sharing I also think that there's something to be said about you can be sometimes companies can be pinged if It's caught by the social media platform, but the video is being posted in multiple places on the same platform. So if you're posting the video on Instagram on the business profile, but then it's going on an individual's profile as well, Instagram doesn't know that you've got an agreement with Your employees. So I think just think about having that original content on your own business profile be more valuable for you. ([Time 0:37:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4d665df0-3ad0-4c44-9732-e36a3785368c))