Conferences, announcements, company culture initiatives… whatever the message, the “naturally more captivating” nature of video is helping it to quickly become the key delivery tool for internal communications.

With 87% of online marketers using video and more than one billion hours of video watched on YouTube every day, video is now impossible to ignore. Especially when research from Forrester says one minute of video is equivalent to 1.8 millions words!

With video being so popular, it’s little surprise that brands invest heavily in their video strategies for external marketing. Yet when it comes to internal content, budgets and the attention paid to video can be much slimmer – an unfortunate development that overlooks the true value of engaging video content.

There is, though, a way to really take advantage of your internal video budget – and tools like Cinebody can quickly show you how.

Companies around the world are getting creative with their video production budgets by using their internal community to film authentic footage, often shot with nothing more complicated than a smartphone and produced solely with internal comms in mind.

Add in some smart production values and effective editing, and the result can be powerful pieces that don’t just gain traction on social platforms – they are also loved by employees and other stakeholders alike.

Smartwool employees, for example, shot engaging footage of a multi-day company outing to a trade show involving their team cycling through epic scenery. The resulting film was a big hit across the team!

Meanwhile, iProspect’s OURDAY series – another employee-filmed initiative – has turned into a global phenomenon with more and more of the company’s offices keen to get involved with every new release. Each featured employee films footage from the moment they wake up through to going back to bed, showing a typical day in the life of an iProspect team member and bringing true personality to the brand.

And ahead of its UNSUMMIT event, business community Common asked its members to film short clips explaining the power of the event. The resulting Q&A-style video was great for encouraging attendance and was even used to kick off the event.

In fact, all of these companies used Cinebody and their employees or wider community to film these internal comms videos. Instead of hiring a costly crew, Cinebody allowed them to simply create through their smartphones – tools which are now so powerful that the iPhone quality is judged good enough to shoot feature-length films. And with all footage automatically uploaded to the cloud, the content process was streamlined from start to finish.

As internal comms budgets continue to be squeezed while video becomes an increasingly valued format, UGC and tools like Cinebody are a key tool in your arsenal!