The COVID-19 virus is a public health crisis that’s gone from zero to panic in just a few months. Countries around the world have shut down all regular operations, restaurants and bars are empty, beaches and malls are deserted, and offices everywhere are working remotely.

For anyone working in advertising, marketing, and video production, the crisis has also brought a lot of projects grinding to a halt. And for corporations and businesses both large and small, a relatively new challenge has become top of mind: how do you reach out and unite your teams when they cannot physically be anywhere near each other?

This is not business as usual, and with self-isolation and telecommuting the new norm for the next few weeks (or months), it can be easy for morale to sink and for company culture to get disconnected.

And yet, while we live in turbulent times we also live in technologically advanced times. When the Swine Flu hit in 2009, we didn’t have access to the kinds of affordable and high-quality video collaboration tools that we have today. And when taking advantage of these tools, we can come together despite being miles apart.

How to Stay Connected During Social Distancing

Obviously, the first port of call for workforces around the globe is videoconferencing. Whether it’s Teams, Zoom, or Slack, high-speed Internet and the latest smartphones and laptops have made it easy to get everyone face-to-face, even when they’re in different cities.

That’s all well and good, but scheduling set times for everyone to get on the call can be a challenge; especially when your team is juggling work, childcare, home-schooling, and other aspects of the COVID-19 fallout. And let’s not forget, the primary use for videoconferencing tools is productivity and communication. It’s about getting work done when you can’t meet in person. These were never designed to be platforms on which to build company culture and unite your staff.

But a more flexible and fun approach to lifting morale, which is something ad agencies and businesses are actively addressing, is through the use of a crowdsourcing video production strategy.

With a tool like Cinebody, everyone on your team can create content on their own time, at their own pace, and share it with the group. It’s a much less structured way of uniting employees, and the results are even more honest, authentic, and refreshing than a videoconference.

Whether your team is in the same state, or stretched across the globe, you can use Cinebody to connect and empower them. Accessing and editing the footage can all be done remotely, which is paramount during this COVID-19 lockdown. In fact, Cinebody is THE form of video production that can take place when you’re social distancing, not only for internal communications and workforce morale, but also connecting with your fans and followers.

So What Kind of Content Can be Created and Shared?

That’s really up to you.

But here at Cinebody, we implemented a handful of fun and creative projects with our team to break up our days and maintain our essential company culture. And when there’s so much dire news bombarding people every day, that kind of unification is imperative.

First and foremost, we kicked things off with a trivia contest, challenging our team on their knowledge of US facts and a little math and science. We even added an incentive for the employee who answered all (or most) of the questions correctly. We then moved to a subject we can all relate to right now - working from home. How are they coping? What’s their daily routine? Everyone had a different story to tell.

On day three, we turned to the subject we just cannot escape - COVID-19. We wanted to know what our team was thinking. How has it changed them? Any ups as well as downs? And after all was said and done, the content that we created was all captured remotely and authentically, and it made our team that much stronger and unified while isolated.

We'll Get Through This. Staying Connected Will Help.

There’s no question this COVID-19 pandemic is scary. But when we unite with our coworkers, family and friends, even when we’re practicing social distancing, we realize just how important our human interactions are.

Whether you’re trying to keep your team morale up, or simply want to reach out and feel less isolated, taking advantage of a video production tool like Cinebody can break down those distance barriers. Stay safe, and stay strong.