WANTED: Social Media Content
As a social media manager it’s hard to consistently come up with interesting content. The only constant that we, social media managers, can cling to is video. Time after time, videos perform better than any other content we put out. Unfortunately, video content, though great, is also a pain to produce and get right.
The problem we face is, it feels a little silly to ask someone from our Video Team to take a break from their client projects to record a 10 second video about #NationalDonutDay. So our solution? Get other people to do our work!
It’s the age-old solution that we used to conceptualize, shoot, edit, and caption ten social media videos in six hours. But really, is it work when it’s a day off from projects to have fun with your coworkers? Our teams certainly didn’t think so!
Introducing: Content Day
For one day in the middle of the summer, all Digital Corps members took a break from client projects and spent the day producing video content for social media. Enter, Content Day. From Content Day, we got more than just a few social media videos. Throughout the day, we kept up on our Instagram story so our followers could be a part of the experience. The day also provided behind-the-scenes photos and videos that we can post about throughout the year.
Team members who usually design or program got a chance to see what the Video Team does, while some of them even learned new skills! Devon, a Communications Team member, was even camera operator for part of a shoot.
When preparing for Content Day, the Communications Team had to determine video content ideas we wanted the teams to pursue. After pulling out a calendar (and brushing the dust off), we identified key times throughout the year we wished we had more engaging content. For example, the beginning of the academic year. We ended up coming up with a list of five occasions of when we wished we had more video content. I’m sure as the year goes on, we’ll add to the list for next year. In addition to these five videos, we gave teams the creative freedom to pick any hashtag holiday to produce video content for.
How It Went
Okay, we know what you’re thinking. How did we plan to keep the persona, tone, and voice consistent when we had five different teams creating content?
To address this, we started Content Day with a 9:00 a.m. kick-off meeting to lead a social media training session. In the session, we discussed our brand persona, voice, and characteristics. This allowed them up to get up-to- speed. Then, the office was split into five teams; each team consisting of an equal(ish) number of developers, designers, content writers, and Video and User Experience team members. Each team was assigned one of the five content ideas.
The teams really took their ideas and ran with them! We asked that they brainstormed locations and general script ideas first so, as the social media managers, we could make sure it would be relevant. To do this, myself and the Communication Team Lead stayed out of the production to consult the teams and check-in throughout the day. We did this because it would’ve been terrible if they spent all day making videos that we couldn’t use.
The teams ended up taking their creativity all around Muncie! One team ended up by the White River and another at Insomnia Cookies.Video Team members led production, but designers and developers alike were acting and helping with creating assets. A developer was even named best performer, and if you ask me, the rest of the developers stole the show, too. By late-afternoon, everyone was back at the office finishing up filming and working on post-production. The teams worked up until the last minute and the competition was heavy.
Once all of the videos were finished and uploaded, we held a viewing party in the office. Some teams even made blooper reels, adding a little more fun to the day. As one of the people who had planned the day, and being sure there would be a mutiny at some point, I was so relieved to see that everyone enjoyed the day. After all, we dragged them away from projects for a whole day. It was a bit of a risk, but it paid off.
Conclusion
Now we have a stockpile of content for the academic year and everyone got a chance to collaborate. It can be stressful to come up with content all by yourself, so it was exciting to have so much help with content creation. I feel like the content will be so much better because it’s not just my sense of humor or my ideas, and instead, it’s really coming from the Digital Corps because it involved so many other employees. We can’t wait to post the videos we made and show you what crazy, fun, exciting things happen when the whole office collaborates.
