7 Best Internal Communication Video Ideas and Examples

Keeping employees motivated, engaged, and on the same page is vital to an organization’s success. How to do that in a world of remote work, hybrid work, and ever-increasing complexity?

Some of the main comms challenges that companies have been facing are:

• Internal information overload, which lowers employee engagement and increases turnover
• Key messages from higher-ups that do not resonate with employees
• Lack of consistent messaging within employee communications

Many of these problems are caused by a lack of time and resources to prepare effective solutions. Assuming a traditional communications plan will work in all scenarios isn’t a safe bet, while implementing an intranet can be costly and time-consuming.

Creating high-quality videos for internal communications is one way successful businesses ensure that employees stay connected and, ultimately, keep the business moving forward. Employees are likely to retain 95% of a message when they watch a video and 59% of executives would rather watch video than read text. A strong internal communications strategy includes creating high-quality video, and the potential benefits can’t be ignored. 

When employees, even geographically dispersed ones, feel connected to the business, it improves recruitment and promotes a positive brand image, helping businesses compete for talent in a fierce market and retain dedicated employees longer. In fact, the Harvard Business Review discovered that, when businesses step up their engagement initiatives, turnover decrease by 25 %

Read on for a step-by-step guide for creating internal communications videos that shine.

Why you should use video in your internal communications strategy

Here are 5 compelling reasons your company should be creating videos for better internal corporate communication:

1. Engage more than other forms of communication

An important aspect to building better employee communication is keeping it a two-way conversation. It’s more engaging to have a dialogue and for employees to feel heard, rather than presenting a monologue every time there’s an announcement. For this reason, corporate videos are a great way to promote this discussion and conversation within the company.

Curious about how to make internal communication videos that truly grab attention? Discover the power of PlayPlay's platform, the innovative video maker for your professional needs. Effortlessly create captivating internal communication videos that resonate with your audience!

2. Add a human touch and build connections

Branded internal newsletters and presentations are classic content for internal corporate communications and internal marketing. However these text-focused visual formats are not as powerful as rich video content that features human speakers and subjects.

People like to see representation in messaging, and for remote work teams which are spread across the country or even the world, seeing fellow colleagues on-screen fosters stronger connections and relationships.

3. More cost-effective than ever before

High quality video creation may seem like a luxury for small to medium companies and marketing departments on a tight budget. Thankfully, expensive video production companies are no longer the only way, thanks to affordable and easy-to-use video maker tools like PlayPlay. It’s easier than ever to create your own video content in-house, while cutting down on staff training and production costs.

4. Appeal to different learning styles

Corporate video production is a flexible way to convey diverse messages, both simple and complex, to all employees. Everyone learns and communicates in different ways and you can produce video content that is targeted to specific audiences. Whether it’s the messaging, visuals, music, or theme–video formats are highly customizable. Read our article on the best internal communication trends to boost your employee's engagement.

5. Save time by eliminating unnecessary in-person meetings

Imagine these two scenarios: sharing an internal company announcement video at the click of a button, versus trying to find a date and time to set up a company-wide meeting that works for everyone.

In most cases, the latter scenario would take up an inordinate amount of time from not only for just internal communicators, but also managers and employees, especially in remote teams where employees have to reschedule their sleep times because of meetings. Communicating the same information through video production increases efficiency and saves valuable company time and funds.

By now you’re probably convinced about the importance of using video for internal communications. However, the challenge now for most companies is to come up with a number of solid internal communication video ideas that are easy to create. Here are a few of the ‘go-tos’ from our clients.

7 video ideas for your internal communications

These video ideas are great tips for your corporate communication strategies:

1. Company Culture

Videos that showcase company culture are a creative and authentic way to amplify your employees’ voices and empower them to feel ownership within the company. In fact, they can cover broader themes like your brand’s overall messaging, or they can focus on specific elements like inclusion and diversity in the workplace.

It’s common to highlight these individual or collective strengths in external video marketing for recruitment and brand building. Don’t forget that it’s equally important to communicate these topics internally to represent and motivate your workforce. Tip: Add music to your company culture video to enhance the energy and impact of your messaging.

2. Announcement

In this example, a video announcement reminds employees to use their vacation days before they expire. This format is highly effective for conveying clear information to a large workforce. Video announcements are attention-grabbing and allow companies to communicate all the essential info they need in one visually engaging format. We recommend using images and video clips to make the information a little more memorable.

Music and text overlay also help make the content and messaging of these videos more dynamic and easier to recall, especially when so many employees commonly experience information overload nowadays.

3. Interview

In corporate interview videos, it’s important to remember that the placement of your subject is just as important as the message.

When filming interview footage with a live speaker, you can use multiple cameras to add dynamic energy to the shots. Depending on your filming style, you can then decide how to best position your subjects within frame.

4. Event Promo

Videos are a great way to improve your promotion for an upcoming event. These videos should always answer the 5 W’s: who, what, when, where, and why the event is taking place. Unlike with static images or posters, you can use dynamic and cool video transitions and animations in the video to introduce featured speakers, the event schedule, and highlight any exclusive content from the event.

Don’t forget to include a strong CTA to encourage viewers to act immediately after watching, whether that’s RSVPing or booking tickets! These tips also work well for promoting webinars and online conferences when it comes to events.

5. Onboarding

Onboarding videos are a fun and engaging way to welcome new hires to the company and guide them into their training. Rather than a standard email with schedule, a video introduction to the company and onboarding activities is exciting and uplifting.

Depending on your brand culture, you can add music or personalized intros to your videos as well to give your new hires a better experience. Adding CTAs to encourage new employees to reach out with questions also increases employee trust and strengthens internal communications from the start.

6. Tutorial

Whether it’s for internal or external audiences, tutorials are one of the most useful and valuable forms of content that companies produce. They save time and money by providing straight-forward and targeted lessons, on anything from executing specific actions to understanding a broader platform.

Tutorials empower employees to understand concepts on their own, while driving staff training costs down and simultaneously increasing the speed at which company employees can learn new skills and softwares.

7. Project Recap

Sometimes it can be challenging for employees and managers to understand the work that their other colleagues do within the same company. Some are not even aware of what measurable impact they have and what results their work produces–which can be common at larger enterprises.

Project recap videos effectively educate companies internally and externally on what key results they’ve produced and how this affects stakeholders. It increases company transparency and provides employees with an opportunity to recognize and celebrate each other’s work.

In addition, project recap videos can boost innovation across the board and help realign brand goals by sharing company successes internally.

How to create internal communication videos: a step-by-step guide

Step 1: Define your video's objective

When creating any form of video communication, it helps to start with a clear objective. Before you do anything else, get to the bottom of exactly what your video is trying to share. Having a defined messaging will make it easier to make decisions later on. Make sure you know the key message you want viewers to leave with.

Step 2: Write your script

Once you understand what employees need to get from your video, it’s time to write a video script. Keep in mind that, although videos are engaging, it still helps to keep things brief. Short and to-the-point is best, and a little storytelling can help your audience memorize your message even better. A tip: summarizing key information at the end of the video helps drive the point home. Internal communication works best when it’s a two-way street; tell employees why the information matters to them.

Step 3: Prepare your equipment

This is where you need to gather your materials—the cameras, microphones, and lights that make a high-quality, professional-looking video.

There are lots of factors at play when selecting equipment, including budget, resources, and availability, so do your best to find quality equipment that meets your specific needs.

It’s important to remember that equipment isn’t just the physical objects required or a video shoot, but the editing software that will turn your footage into a slick, watchable video. That’s where PlayPlay can help. It doesn’t take any technical know-how to design high-quality videos using the tool. In fact, PlayPlay was designed with communications teams in mind.

Want to know more about tools? Discover the list of internal communication tools you need.

Step 4: Record your footage

Action! This is where the planning stage ends and the production stage begins. 

• Make sure you record footage in a good location, with proper light and without too much background noise.
• Before you start to record in earnest, do a test run and ensure that everything’s in working order.
• Don’t rush: take multiple shots or record several takes to get it right, especially if you are conducting interviews. People will feel more relaxed ! 
• Lastly, don’t forget to shoot some B-roll—videos feel more professional with a few establishing shots thrown in.

Step 5: Edit your footage into a catchy video

Now that you have the footage you need, it’s time to trim that down into a short and sweet branded video that will capture employees’ attention. This is where it helps to refer back to your script from step two—staying closely aligned with your original script will ensure the video doesn’t become overly long or veer from the intended point.

However, don’t forget to play! Adding transitions to make the video flow more naturally in one way to spice up the finished product. So is a great musical score, as well as a good voice-over if needed.

As always, subtitles are an important element that help more people engage with the video.

And don’t forget to finish with a final CTA—here is where you can make sure everyone who watches your video knows what to do next.

Step 6: Share!

Consider this your video’s red-carpet premiere! Now’s the time to post the video on all the channels your employees go for communications, be that a company Intranet, internal newsletters, or an email link. Sit back and wait for the rave reviews.

Over to you

Now that you understand the importance of videos for internal comms, you can start transforming your corporate strategy. Check out the recording of PlayPlay's recent webinar (co-hosted with Zoom!) on this subject for even more inspiration.

Want to get started? Try a video maker tool like PlayPlay free for 7 days, or book a demo with a specialist today to learn more about all the different video possibilities for you.