Using Video to Celebrate and Engage Your Employees – South Norfolk Council GEM Awards 2012
We we’re at a client’s annual conference recently, it was focused on HR and recruitment. One of the most common themes that was mentioned during the keynote presentations, was the importance that businesses and organisations need to place on ‘engaging their employees’ in these challenging economic times.
A great way of celebrating and engaging employees was demonstrated earlier in March this year when South Norfolk Council held their annual GEM staff awards – (GEM – Go the Extra Mile) – we captured the essence of the event for them producing a video of the evening’s highlights, that the council was then able to share with a wider audience on their website and social media channels – check it out below.
Find out more about South Norfolk Council.
YouTube Rolls Out Radical Revamp
As of today, the ‘new’ YouTube is available to everyone – check out the YouTube video below for the lowdown on the redesign.
Highlights include:
- An ‘add channels’ button in the top left-hand corner of the page
- Under that you’ll find your top 10 favourite channels, which you can ‘pin’ to the top of the page
- YouTube is also tweaking the colours of its logo and adding a soft gray background to the videos
- Integration with the Google+ social network, plus it’s now easier to post videos to Facebook and Twitter
- Four new channel templates for content creators
Effective Organisation Design Case Study – New Web Video For Local Government Employers
One of our latest projects went live recently – a web video case study for our long term client Local Government Employers – the case study focused on ‘Effective Organisation Design’ and profiles the London Borough of Croydon and their ‘Layers and Spans of Control’ programme.
To support the web video case study, LGE also asked us to produce an audio podcast that features in-depth interviews with key members of the Croydon team, who outline in detail their process and recommendations for others about to embark on a similar programme – you can listen to the 25 minute podcast here.
Posted in: Clients, Video Case Study, Web Video, YouTube
Video – How to Get the New Facebook Timeline Now
So the last couple of weeks have been pretty manic from a Facebook perspective – numerous updates across the platform including the big news about the all new Facebook ‘Timeline’ replacing the current profile layout.
The new timeline is due to be rolled out across accounts from 04th October 2011 – but if you’re super keen and want to upgrade to the new timeline now, you can – it’s pretty straightforward and this great video walks you through how to do it.
I did it a couple of days ago, my initial reaction to the new timeline is really positive, I’m a big fan of chronology as a way of organising things anyway, so this layout really feels comfortable for me – it’ll be interesting to see how it goes down with other Facebook users, maybe it’ll even encourage some people to switch to Google+ which is now open to all.
What do you think about the new Facebook timeline?
Latest Client Video Project – Talking Heads Style Interview With PPMA President Anne Gibson
We published our latest web video last week for long term client The PPMA (Public Sector People Managers’ Association).
The online video (see below – running time 4 minutes 30 seconds) features a ‘talking heads’ style interview with current PPMA President Anne Gibson, who outlines her thoughts on the key issues facing the Association and its members over next 18 months and she also comments on how public sector cuts are affecting capability within organisations and what the future impact will be.
We managed the entire production process of the web video including planning, filming, editing, encoding and uploading of the final film to the PPMA’s new website, YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter account.
The aim of the video is threefold, firstly to bring the current president’s agenda to life and introduce her to the wider HR community, secondly to engage PPMA’s online community across both it’s main website and social channels and thirdly to improve their new website’s SEO – video is a great tool for achieving this according to leading global research company Forrester, who in 2010 identified that a website with a video is 53 times more likely to come up on a first page result on Google than the exact same page without video - sobering stuff!
Facebook Adds Skype Video Chat
Facebook has announced a partnership with Skype to add video chat to the social networking site. The move is likely to be seen as a shot across the bow of Google, which recently launched a Facebook rival, Google+, also featuring video calling.
This is not the first time Facebook and Skype have teamed up – they already share some instant messaging tools. Skype is in the process of being bought by Microsoft, which is a major shareholder in Facebook.
The new video-call service was launched by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who also revealed that the site now had more than 750 million users. However, he said that the total number of active users was no longer a useful measure of the site’s success.
Instead, the amount of sharing – of photographs, videos and web links – was a better indication of how people engaged with the site, explained Mr Zuckerberg.
At launch, Facebook’s video chat service will only be able to connect two users face-to-face, whereas Google’s system allows group video calls, known as Hangouts. Mark Zuckerberg said that it was likely that other “premium” Skype functions would be added in future.
He also appeared to offer a back-handed compliment to Google+, saying that its creation was a vindication of Facebook’s vision for the social web. Industry analysts welcomed the announcement.
“Advertisers love anything that keeps users on Facebook for longer and that is something Facebook has been brilliant at – keeping people engaged with the platform for increasingly longer periods of time,” Susan Etlinger of the Altimeter Group told BBC News.
“It stands to reason that the longer you are on Facebook, the happier advertisers will be.”
In California, Skype chief executive Tony Bates welcomed the partnership, calling it a “long-term relationship” that could benefit both companies. At one point he had to correct Mr Zuckerberg on the subject of Skype’s ownership, reminding him that the Microsoft deal was not yet complete and still had to be cleared by regulators.
The tie-in was announced a week after Google announced its own social networking service, Google+.
“The two companies built these products separately and independently over a number of months but they will be compared directly,” said Ben Parr, editor-at-large of social media blog Mashable.com.
“They are going to be in more heated competition in the next year or so and you are going to hear a lot about who is going to win the social networking war – how does Google catch up, how does Facebook respond. This story isn’t going away.”
Source: BBC News
Posted in: Facebook, Social Networks, Web Video
Facebook to Start Showing Films
Just picked this up from the BBC…
Warner Bros has announced it will stream some of its movies on Facebook. It’s the first major Hollywood studio to work with the social networking giant in this way. Executives hope it will be a new way for the entertainment company to make money.
The service will only be available to Facebook users in America to start with. But if it proves successful it could roll out to other countries around the world including the UK.
It works by charging people 30 Facebook credits, the equivalent of $3 (around £2), to rent the film. They then have 48 hours in which to watch it.
The first movie being made available is 2008 blockbuster Batman: The Dark Knight. Other films will follow over the next few months although there are no details yet on which ones.
As high speed broadband becomes more widely available growing numbers of people are expected to download more content like movies.
Warner Bros is the first big Hollywood player to make this step but if it’s a success others will no doubt try something similar. It also has implications for other providers of movie streaming services. Netflix claims it is the world’s largest with 20 million users across North America. Meanwhile in February Amazon launched its own version called Prime.
But by offering its service through Facebook Warner Bros has secured instant access to more than 500 million people around the world. That number dwarfs anything that competing subscription services have. It’s a fact that will not be ignored by other major players in the movie business.
Source: BBC News
Project Canvas To Become YouView
A new free-to-air, web-connected TV service combining Freeview digital channels with on-demand content such as iPlayer will launch in the UK in 2011.
YouView – formerly known as Project Canvas – is a partnership between BT, BBC, ITV, BT, Five, Ch 4 and TalkTalk. Users will access the service via a set-top box, which will go on sale next year.
YouView’s chief executive, Richard Halton, claimed it would “change the way we watch TV for ever”.
The set-top boxes will be sold either on a stand-alone basis, or as part of a package provided by internet service providers. However, both the price and set-top box manufacturer has yet to be decided.
A spokesperson for YouView told BBC News that the door was open for firms to bid for the set-top box contract.
The principle behind YouView is that it should make it easier for viewers to catch up with programmes from the BBC iPlayer, ITV.com and 4OD on their TV set, rather than on a laptop, desktop, or smartphone.
TV Week
The service will enable viewers to watch programmes up to seven days after broadcast, along with the ability to search programmes by type, such as films, sport and documentaries.
Mr Halton said the service “combines the best TV with on demand services and internet content”.
“I am delighted to be leading the team who will make it a reality.”
However, the project has come in from criticism from several quarters.
Sky’s director of corporate affairs, Graham McWilliam, has called it “nothing short of BBC mission creep” while Virgin Media lodged a complaint with media regulator Ofcom in August saying it was anti-competitive and could destroy the online TV market.
An earlier scheme, Project Kangaroo, was blocked by the Competition Commission at the start of 2010.
Source: BBC News
