Storytelling from personal to professional - Top tips from AIG's video specialist

Storytelling via video can be a powerful tool to cross the barrier between the personal and the professional. Mastering that skill as a business is key for building trust and engagement with your employees - especially during times of change and uncertainty.

We invited AIG’s Digital Video Specialist Scott DeFillippo, to join us for a ‘Coffee break with Seenit’ webinar to learn more about how AIG is breaking down that barrier between the personal and the professional with powerful user-generated video storytelling.

Scott is Manager of Video for AIG Corporate Communications and has more than 17 years of experience managing and directing corporate videos, broadcast news, live events, and digital video.

In case you missed it, you can watch a short recap right below:

And here are our top 3 takeaways:

1. To create your own people-stories, it’s important to build trust by being relatable and actually caring about the stories they tell. It will make for more powerful content. 

In order to create content that speaks to people you should tell the stories that matter to them. Therefore, it’s important to let them tell their story, instead of trying to tell their story for them. In case you’re wondering how to get the best stories out of your people, it’s quite simple: get to know them, their stories, their passions. Building that trust is crucial to empower both sides to create good quality content that is authentic and relatable. Finally make sure your people have the tools and the support they need to help you tell those stories. Let them know what it is you’re looking for and the best way to do that is by showing them. Get on camera yourself and create a video brief that shows exactly what it is you’re looking for. If you’re willing to film yourself, they will give you that same trust back.

2. The content that performs best is video, especially when it has a human interest and personal twist.

Of all global online activity, 33% is spent watching video. Today, great quality videos can be easily created with smartphones from anyone and anywhere around the world. In fact, often times when you are trying to tell human stories, it is hard to walk in with a professional crew and a big set up and get somebody organically to engage. Allow personal moments to happen. Try to break down that corporate barrier and let people be themselves. Ask them to tell a story their own way. Let them film themselves, or create a comfortable environment that’s more like a conversation with a friend rather than an official interview - this will help get that story told most authentically.

3. UGC is a powerful tool to create and share impactful stories from your people and in bringing your company’s values to life organically.

Everybody has a unique story to tell, and user-generated content (UGC) allows you to tell those stories in the most authentic way. It is easier to get to know people’s personal lives through UGC because it lowers the barriers. People feel more comfortable sharing when they can do it in their own terms by using their own mobile phone without the need of much technical equipment or unauthentic scripts. The corporate content you create doesn’t need to be different from personal content. Most importantly it needs to feel and look like it will be out in the real world. When creating videos about your company, try to first and foremost highlight your employees. Why do they come to work everyday? What do they enjoy the most about their work? Encourage them to talk about themselves, because those personal touches are essential for effective corporate storytelling.

In case you’d like to learn more about how AIG creates people-powered video content with their employees at scale, you can watch the whole webinar recording, including some brilliant video examples from AIG, right here, or get in touch with us below to learn how you can get started to create your own people-powered stories through video.

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