Many companies have long been experimenting with social media as a way to engage employees, clients and customers. Internal use of microblogging sites like Yammer is certainly nothing new, but what has changed in the last few years is the ease at which anyone can publish and share high-quality content via their smartphone. Armed with this technology, employees can create their own videos, images, blogs and social media postings, then post it to their company’s internal enterprise video platform or via the likes of YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Instagram for public consumption.

Malcolm Padley, communications director at pest control firm Rentokil Initial plc, which won awards for its use of smartphone video footage in its international Pestaurant campaign, says employee-generated content (EGC) has clearly improved internal engagement, “We use Google+ as our internal social media platform and it’s been a massive success for our organisation. A lot of our workers spend much of their time away from the office, going out in their vans and seeing customers. And that’s where we want them – spending less time in office-bound meetings and more time in front of customers – using social media to support the operational side of the business as well as using it as a communications tool. We’ve equipped them with smartphones and we’re now one of Google’s largest users of Google Plus and also Google Hangouts.

”Used effectively, EGC can boost engagement, bring internal experts to the fore and be a low-cost way of sharing knowledge. Sumit Rai, chief experience officer at enterprise video content management experts Qumu, comments, “When you have good EGC you are opening up this wealth of knowledge across an organisation. This is particularly true in the B2B space, such as with the banking community, where much of the workforce is client facing and therefore involved in communicating directly with its audience every day.

 ”Paul Hewitt, global HR portal channel manager at Deutsche Bank, led the delivery of a new IT portal for the bank in 2013, making use of EGC to enable employee self-service and cost reduction. He says, “Forward-thinking organisations are starting to realise there is much to be gained from utilising user-generated content within the enterprise. For the organisation there is the opportunity to deliver more for less; for the employee it is a chance to build their network and become recognised as an internal expert, a win-win.

”As with all internal communication and content marketing, companies need to be clear about how they intend to use EGC and what they want to get out of it. “For maximum effectiveness, user-generated content initiatives need to be targeted and managed,” Paul continues. “Areas where this approach has been proven to work include IT, where moderated communities can significantly increase the scope of content available to employees, driving greater satisfaction at lower cost."

A question of control

Corporates have traditionally obsessed over controls and guidelines when it comes to anything digital so the degree of control over the process of EGC is an area that’s often up for debate. But provided there are clear guidelines on what the employees can be encouraged to say and the company has strong values to which it lives by, employees should be trusted to produce content responsibly.

As Malcolm points out, “If you’re employees are using it effectively, are willing to upload content for the purposes of sharing, communicating, supporting and recognising achievements, then that’s half the battle, and what you actually end up with will be hugely effective. 

”Sumit agrees, “I think this idea that you have a gatekeeper community where you only allow the marketing department or corporate communicators to talk to people is a recipe for disaster. Seeing it as a locked walled garden is where most people go wrong with EGC. 

”For best results, companies should define a clear purpose for EGC and contributors should be aware of the parameters for submissions. Dean Beswick, creative partner at Gorilla Gorilla!, says, “I’ve seen people spend a lot of money on large enterprise video platforms which are often pushing EGC without any thought to editorial or quality control. It should never be video for video’s sake... and I am now seeing people coming round to this idea of the need to have a sharper editorial eye when it comes to EGC. 

“You need that open, democratic spark for content to be willingly submitted by employees. By the same token you need editorial oversight; someone to set the agenda, weed out inappropriate material and, if necessary, apply some direction to the overall package.”Dean cites the example of HSBC Now – the bank’s internal news programme – which was highlighted at Communicate magazine’s recent Visual Content for Internal Communicators conference. 

In her speech at the event, HSBC Now’s managing editor Jenny Varley pinpointed the key to the programme’s massive success, “We gave the microphone back to employees,” she said, going on to point out that this allowed for a culture shift within the organisation. “An open and honest culture is about confronting taboo subjects that are important to employees,” she added. HSBC Now has covered everything from the Arab Spring to gay pride to charity adventure achievements – all focusing on and carried out by employees.

Clearly, companies need to think carefully about their approach with employees when asking them to contribute content. Sumit comments, “Everywhere where we’ve deployed EGC, we’ve always seen that you need champions. The worst way to do it is to say, from day one, you are all going to be making video, because everyone is just going to run a mile. You need to do it by stealth and work with people who are prepared to be champions. Then, all of a sudden, one research analyst or fund manager or someone in the exec team will communicate to the rest of the business and the next thing you know people are looking at it saying, ‘This is great’, and, ‘We need to do this too’.

”Authenticity is the name of the game. As Dean says, “The mistake people often make is that they try and turn people into filmmakers. That completely misses the point of EGC because you lose all that authenticity and what you end up making is really rubbish corporate videos. You need to look at it as a useful creative tool that works really well for certain things and you have to play to the strengths of the medium.”

Game for adventure

There’s certainly no shortage of creativity when it comes to companies encouraging employees to contribute. Gamification, whereby employees can be rewarded for accomplishing certain tasks and reaching various goals, has already been adopted by the likes of Microsoft. Its Academy Rewards program allowed employees to accrue points for each video they uploaded to YouTube and for the views they received. It stimulated employees not only to create content but also to advertise it among their colleagues. Points were then redeemable for tech gadgets via an online store.

Another popular way to get employees involved is to run internal contests. Chris Chiampas, general manager of video platform Kontiki, gives the example of General Motors: “GM had run a contest for the 50-year anniversary of the Chevrolet Camaro where employees had to create a two or three minute commercial which captured what it was that they loved about the car in a creative way. They weren’t overly prescriptive – they simply gave everybody some guidelines, a topic and then they branded all the content at the end.

”Keeping the tone light-touch and playful works well in the world of snackable video content – it’ll certainly increase the likelihood of it being viewed, shared and talked about. Some companies are even experimenting with comedy.

Chris points to real estate firm Movoto as an example. The brand has become synonymous with video postings featuring employees from across the country who poke fun at regionally specific words, place names and slang. Although it’s more content marketing than pure EGC, the videos are created by genuine employees and more often than not they go viral.

In many ways, good EGC extends far beyond the audience that creates it. Malcom says, “What we’ve found is that people are using the channels for a number of different things. Take technical support, for example. If one of the pest control experts finds a spider on top of an Oxford Street building and they are not too sure what it is and how to deal with it, they can take photos or a video of it and post it online. They can then access the global technical community or do a hangout with their technical manager, share the photo and get their advice. So it’s about operational excellence and improving customer service in that context.

”Sumit comments, “We have customers like BT and Centrica who are using their smartphones to capture issues to do with a boiler, for example, then posting it to a common forum. That is where EGC really makes sense to me. Even in the medical profession, despite the huge legalities, we know people are, in emergencies, having to use EGC to get an opinion from another consultant... It can ultimately be lifesaving.

”Increasingly EGC is being used for recruitment purposes. A best practice example comes from the Deloitte Film Festival which encouraged employees to create short movies of what it was like to work at the accountancy firm, again using a humorous slant. 

Others go further, where EGC often morphs into a form of candidate-generated content. Examples include Glassdoor, the jobs and careers community, which offers anonymous, employee-generated insights from both current and former employees about what it is really like to work at a particular company. Innovation like this explores how potential hires experience the recruitment process. As it becomes more commonplace, companies will need to work harder to ensure that the candidate experience is a good one.

“The mistake people often make is that they try and turn people into filmmakers. That completely misses the point of EGC because you lose all that authenticity and what you end up making is really rubbish corporate videos”

Ultimately, companies can use EGC as a way to drive company culture. “EGC is a great way to break up the mundane corporate communication,” says Chris. “It is also a way to drive people to use video as a means of communication. The more video you have in the mix, the more they are going to watch and the more variety and interest you will have across the user base.

 “If you break up the quarterly all-hands videos with a commercial, some user-generated content and a funny skit, you start to get the impulsive clicks and views. You’ll also start to drive video as a means of communication across the culture, which means less PowerPoint, less email, and more video.

”If EGC can increase trust and engagement, inspire people to take action and unite employees around digital media, then that’s quite something. If it can rid a company of the dreaded PowerPoint presentation then it should be celebrated universally. The more power to the people, the better.