How to Create the Best Year in Review Video

Whether it’s a way to get employees excited, a summary for management, or a way to show your users the milestones of the last 12 months, there’s no more engaging way to recap the year than than with video.

Yes, 2016 has (finally) come to an end. Now is a great time for your businesses to reflect on the successes and challenges. This is a great opportunity to boost employee morale. Everyone from sales to management and everyone in between loves seeing what went well and the challenges they overcame as a team.  Don’t forget to share the fun too. Highlighting special events, celebrations, holidays, volunteer events, and even birthdays is key. Your company values its employees and celebrates its internal successes. Showing employees that they’re an important part of your company story is often overlooked but so important.

Another great audience for a video recap is your management team and Board of Directors.  A video can summarize the year in an engaging way and get management all on the same page. One successful way to approach a video for this audience is to highlight press mentions, big wins, financial stats, and highlights from tradeshows, keynotes and demos too. The higher ups in your company will value reassurance of their efforts, and what better way to demonstrate that with a well-polished video?

You’ll be able to share a year in review video on your company Facebook page, YouTube channel, and even on your website. A fun highlight of the year that includes quotes from customers, product announcements, and even events that show your company culture are great. A side benefit for this public facing video is that it can also be an outstanding recruiting tool for potential employees looking for an awesome place to work.

So 2016 is over, but today is the perfect day to start planning for the 2017 recap. Here are some tips to get you started. Create a single folder on your computer in which to put all media that you collect throughout the year.  Trust us, it will make your life so much easier and will help you avoid the last minute scramble of trying to find important clips or having to collect items from other people.

Here’s a short list of what should be filling that folder:

  • Press coverage mentioning your company
  • Large event photos or videos like trade-shows, keynotes, demos, etc
  • Photos and videos from company events like your holiday party, all hands meetings, volunteer events, cultural events, and more
  • Financial stats: much more interesting to see a graph build vs being told numbers
  • Awards, big wins, design wins, mergers and acquisitions

While recap videos can be very exciting, it’s important to keep in mind the purpose of the video and the audience you’re making it for. Your shareholder and board video is different from the public and recruiting video, which is different from the employee appreciation video. Each can highlight company success, remain as transparent as possible about challenges, and show how the company bounced back.  A great highlight video will reinforce employee pride and a feeling that your company is a great place to work. It’s your chance to impress, inspire, engage, and kick off the new year with a great start.

Lights, Camera, Action.

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