Company culture is as important to the success of a business as the product it sells. Ideals like inclusivity, transparency, honesty, and innovation are found in many cultural manifestos, helping employees to understand the mission and vision of the company, and allowing the employees of those businesses to all work towards a common goal.

But how do you convey the message of company culture to your employees? According to two experts I spoke to recently, video is a crucial element of helping your employees to learn more about your business and its guiding principles.

And more than that, it can actually be a way of making sure that everyone is getting the same message at the same time, which creates a feeling of community even when your employees are spread out all over the world.

Let’s take a look at two really important aspects of building company culture with video, with expert advice, and a little science to back it all up.

Video adds clarity to your company culture message

No matter how big or small your organization is, video is critical to engaging your staff in a meaningful way, says Michael Shinn, Director of Global Managed Services at Verrex. As AV systems designers and integrators, the people at Verrex understand the challenges and opportunities of enterprise video very well.

Michael is an advocate for using video over text-based documents as a means of educating employees on your company’s culture because research shows how well it can help to add clarity to your message. Here’s why it works.

In this blog post you’re currently reading, what you’ll find missing from what I’m writing here are my tone of voice and its inflections; my body language and gesticulations; and my facial expressions.

So, while I can convey the basics of the message I want to convey to you, I can’t add any further emotional impact unless I were to, perhaps, employ a well-placed gif to help get across the tone of what I’m writing.

And even then, all I’ve done is provide a little bit of amusement, instead of really driving my point home. So what’s the solution?

Back in 1971, Albert Mehrabian undertook studies that looked at communication in three parts. He analyzed the importance of words, tone of voice, and then body language. His findings stated that 7% of communication is verbal, 38% is tone of voice, and 55% is body language.

If we use that as our benchmark, Michael said, then we can see how much more effective video can be when relating ideas to employees — especially around something like company culture where conveying feelings and attitudes are essential to understanding.

“To be an effective communicator in any organization of any size, and to any crowd,” Michael went on to say, “video is essential in emphasizing and clarifying your message.”

Live all hands meetings create a sense of community

Stephen Shea is another A/V pro I spoke to, and what he shared with me was a little bit surprising. Stephen is a CTS-Certified director of the San Francisco office of Shen Milsom & Wilke, a company that delivers A/V solutions, and more.

As we went back and forth for a while on the subject of using video to enhance company culture, Stephen brought up the that feed back they are receiving from clients is, while video is down around third in the list of what’s important in corporate conferencing, it was the number one requirement for those looking to use video for all hands or town hall meetings.

“While video is obviously a nice thing to have in one-to-one conferencing, it’s actually third on the list of what our clients are looking for behind audio clarity and the ability to share documents,” Stephen said. “But when it comes to all hands meetings, video is THE FIRST THING that they want to have. And it’s got to be to every employee, everywhere, on every type of device.”

So why is it so important to have the ability to live stream your all hands meetings?

Stephen says that being able to see the presenter as opposed to just hearing them, allows viewers to make a better connection than if they were just listening or reading documentation.

“You can see enthusiasm and excitement, where you don’t necessarily get that from just content or just audio,” Stephen went on to say.

And because you’re broadcasting live to your employees, wherever they may be, you build a sense of community. All employees are a part of the presentation, as opposed to just being presented at. This is especially true of live presentations — pre-recording doesn’t give you the same level of interaction for town hall meetings.

These regular meetings really help to not just convey information, but to actually create a culture of inclusiveness, which is something every company should be striving for in their company culture.

It’s very positive for the future of business that so many companies are recognizing the power of video to achieve this goal.

Video enhances employee (and everyone else’s) performance and learning results

A recent study found that college students will voluntarily watch videos on their own to enhance their understanding of course topics. What they found was that students who did watch video were more engaged, and had greater motivation to learn.

The same learning principle applies to all of us, whether we’re students or employees. And when you’re building company culture, it can be a challenge to get ideas across to your staff.

We see more and more success stories with video everyday, proving how important video really is to company culture. The more you embrace it, the more you’ll get out of it.