How to encourage employees to shoot and appear in videos

Employees, of course. They get high marks for adding authenticity to videos, which helps build viewership and makes messages resonate more deeply.

However, building a cache of videos featuring employees—either created by them, or created by corporate communicators and starring employees—takes time and some convincing.

How do you get busy workers to set aside time to create a video or take part in one? Gathering video from employees requires thoughtful planning and creative ideas about how to encourage participation. Still, the process isn’t easy, says Lizzie Costello, writer and video producer at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

“It’s especially challenging in a health care environment, where it’s against hospital policy to take video or pictures at work outside of the marketing and communications department,” Costello says. In high-pressure places like a busy hospital, asking employees to set aside a couple of hours to participate in videos is a real challenge. “The focus is on patient care, and there are high expectations for employees. How can they find time to engage with communications?”