So. You've got the leading video automation platform on your side. But what stories are you going to tell? Dip into our community blog for ideas, inspiration and plenty of handy how-tos.
January 23, 2023
January 23, 2023
Our CEO, Peder Bonnier, knows this all too well:
“What’s happened in social is that distribution and quality are intrinsically linked. If you publish something that's bad, no one will see it, but if you publish something that's great, you'll get a ton of distribution. Of course, it's really hard to know beforehand. So the only way to solve the problem is to just keep iterating and publishing, and when things do well, ask yourself why”.
But achieving a stream of posts that perform well is easier said than done. It’s made easier when you have an inherent ‘feeling' for what resonates. How do you become that discerning content manager? Simple: by making more mistakes.
Understanding what works, and what doesn’t, means knowing your audience’s wants and needs inside out. It means being able to draw on content pillars that truly inspire them. It means testing out your ideas, and putting work live without tweaking it to perfection.
Opening yourself up to making mistakes always feels vulnerable, particularly as social is so public. But it’s time to unlearn the idea that social content needs to be a perfect highlight reel: that assumes there’s a captive audience even watching the reel in the first place. Not anymore!
How many times have you gone back and forth over the specifics of a simple post, sculpting, adjusting amending and perfecting until it feels perfectly on-brand?
How many times has that post actually worked?
Brand guidelines are important when treated as guardrails, but make sure they’re working for you, not against you.
Instead of getting bogged down in endless revision meetings, ask yourself how you can create MORE content:
The more you test, the more you’ll know. The more you post, the more you’ll be rewarded.
It’s faster to make, repurpose and share your video content when you use Storykit. Find new angles in your story, then create and share them faster than ever. Just share a line of text and our AI will turn it into a video. It’s that simple.
January 9, 2023
January 9, 2023
Buckle up: the job market is getting tough for employers.
Your potential new recruit is pitting you against a sea of brands thirsty for new talent, many of which have big budgets and an enviable array of benefits. Is your employer brand strong enough to attract their attention, or - let’s be honest - are you more of an employer bland?
Employer branding is one of the most essential ways to hire the best candidate for the job. Add video into the mix, and you’re on your way to building the kind of employer branding strategy that’ll have potential new recruits biting your hand off for an interview (not literally, of course).
If you’re ready to attract a higher caliber of talent to your company, read on…
Your employer brand is what springs to mind when potential employees look at your company as a place to work. It’s influenced by your culture, values, and benefits - get that mixture right, and you’re halfway to convincing potential new hires as a place they’d want to work. Communicate it well, and you might just win them over. After all, it’s not just you who is making a big decision when offering them a role – they are, too!
The chances are, yes it does! As companies shift to working remotely, the pool of jobs gets wider and wider, and your net gets smaller. If you’re already finding yourself struggling to pit yourself against competitors, losing candidates to better offers, or even failing to fill your roles without a recruitment agency, you need a compelling employer branding strategy – and that starts on social media.
We’re sure there are plenty of benefits to working for you, but a jobs board on your website just isn’t a competitive enough way to show that anymore. By making social media part of your recruitment process, you’re able to add a much-needed human element to convince would-be employees of why they should work for you, and only you. Show you care, and if you invest in your recruitment process, you’re more likely for the right candidate to invest in you.
How do you stop letting your company be overlooked by potential employees? Use social media to amplify your employer branding – and you’ll start standing out in a crowded job market.
Before you start creating your content, it's important to have a clear understanding of who you're trying to reach. Which departments will be ramping up hiring soon, or what areas of your business are you struggling to recruit for? This will help you tailor your content, so you can hone your message. For example, if you’re hiring a senior developer, you could interview the hiring manager, feature a behind-the-scenes video or a day in the life of the team. But all of that content only works if you know your audience first!
Once you’ve built an image of your target, work out where they’re spending their time and talk to them there. Maybe they’re in Reddit forums in the evening, perhaps they browse Instagram before work, or maybe they religiously update their LinkedIn profile. Once you know where they are, you can focus your energy on those platforms. Don’t feel like you have to be everywhere - just choose the channels that make the most sense!
Once you understand your audience, you can start creating your stories with confidence. What threads of your company life can you weave into beautiful blankets? Which watercooler chats about an employee’s progress would actually lay the groundwork for captivating reads? There are stories everywhere. And you’re in luck, because we’ve also got bucketfuls of ideas for employer branding content:
Social media is called social for a reason – it's about engaging with your followers and building relationships. Respond to comments, share user-generated content, and crucially, interact with other industry players by sharing their content or leaving thoughtful comments on their content. Play the long game: build a strong, positive employer brand and your followers will keep coming back for more.
Finally, it's important to track the success of your employer branding efforts on social media. Are they moving the needle effectively? Use platform-native analytics tools (they’re free!) to see how your content is performing, so you can understand what to invest more time into and what to cut from your plan. Combine this with surveying your recruits on what caught their attention, and you’ll be able to fine-tune your strategy and ensure your employer branding efforts are delivering maximum return on your investment.
Congratulations! You’ve gotten through Employer Branding 101.
Now, let’s get to the actionable stuff – what employer branding videos should you make, and how do you make them?
Wonder no more - because we’ve got you covered. Here are are 4 employer branding videos that you can turn into staple content.
Show off the things you love about your office, your colleagues or your company events with this list video. This is a great format for some informal video clips or photos to give your audience a peak behind the scenes!
Highlight the success your colleagues have achieved with this video. It’s a great way to show the challenging and rewarding work people can look forward to getting stuck into when they join the company.
You want your potential recruits to know about the perks of working at your company. Forget about posting a bullet list of activities and benefits. Use the video idea to create a handfull of report-style videos where you take your audience a long for the ride. It’s a deceptively easy format to put together and a really effective one at that.
December 12, 2022
December 12, 2022
Tighter budgets and uncertainty make people less inclined to buy.
It’s hard to commit when you’re not sure what the next few months will bring, and even harder if the budget just isn't there.
But, people who aren’t looking to commit are still open to seeing what’s out there and finding out what they like. Recession-time is dating-time for brands and their audiences, and brand marketing is the name of the game.
This is a roundabout way of saying that it makes sense to align your marketing focus with where the market is at – if you notice that your lead capture efforts are quieting down, the knee-jerk reaction could be to throw more budget, time and effort at lead gen tactics.
But what we’ve learnt from previous recessions is that you’ll likely be throwing good money after bad.
So, what do you do?
You start dating.
For your brand, that is.
Shift your focus to creating and distributing content that’s aimed at getting your brand seen and understood – make it decision-making and help your target market develop their relationship with your brand.
Because that relationship is one of the most valuable things you can have. A person’s relationship to a brand often trumps all the other rational decision-making that we imagine goes into buying decisions.
Whether that’s by biassing the comparison of alternatives or simply ruling out the alternatives altogether.
Just remember, this is dating. Not The Bachelor. Resist the temptation to make this about getting people to sign up or buy in the short term. Let this be about getting the market acquainted with your brand, no strings attached.
How do you get your target market to fall in love with your brand? Here’s a checklist of the kind of tactics and content you should aim to share.
Consider expanding where you show up - if your audience is there, create content that’s optimised for discovery and consumption behaviour on that platform. You want to be as visible as possible, so put money behind this and go broad. You could redirect the budget from underperforming lead gen ads - it’s going towards the same goal, you’re just driving the process from an earlier stage in the customer journey.
This kind of content is short, memorable, and makes a clear connection between your brand name or logo and the brand identity and values or mission. You want people to know your name and what to think of when they see or hear it. They don’t need the details, they just need to make the connection.
At this point, people have seen your brand around, they know your name, but that’s about it. So, keep going broad when it comes to distribution & targeting (and re-targeting) – this is when you get them to go from aware to curious.
This content should help the audience understand what kind of brand you are – but don’t just tell people what values and characteristics your brand has, show them! How well does it work when a person walks up to you and says “Hey, I’m really cool!”?
Yeeeaah. Not half as well as it would have if they had just been cool.
Moral of the story: Be your-brand-self. How? Storytelling. Let the audience connect the dots themselves, it’s really so much more effective than giving them a list.
So, if we get back to our Tinder analogy for just a second, we’ve come to the part where you start chatting with a smaller portion of the dating pool. In other words, it’s tiiiiime toooooo segmeeeeeent! Start targeting narrower segments of your audience so you can speak specifically to their experience.
Create content that resonates with each segment’s perspective, problems, preferences or frame of mind. You want to show that your brand gets them, and what they care about. Connect your brand to something (relevant) that stands out to them, in a way that reflects the kind of brand that you are and the role you would play in their lives
It’s all very well giving you brand marketing advice that could double as some kind of dating manual.
What you really need is a way to get it done, right? Very well.
Here are three video templates that you can use, today, to create the brand marketing content outlined in the checklist.
The great thing about these video templates is that each one is designed around a narrative structure that weaves the power of storytelling into your videos, helping you create more effective content that drives your results.
Not sure what narratives and storytelling have to do with anything? Check out this article: Storytelling: the secret sauce of high-performing marketing content.
You don’t. You could adapt these templates and use the outline to create a blog post or carousel. BUT. Video is just so much more effective when it comes to getting your audience’s attention and getting your message across. Why? Two things:
Something is happening right away, right in front of your audience that draws them in.
There’s no initial weighing up of whether it’s worth consuming a video, like you would with a blog post or something that requires more active engagement. It just happens. And that’s really essential for getting the broad reach that you need for brand marketing. (In light of this: Thank you for reading - I appreciate you).
There’s something about length that scares people off. But like a good Typeform form, you don’t really notice the length of the video before you start watching.
If the first chunk is interesting, you wait for the next, and if that’s interesting too, you wait for the next. So, if you do your job right (super easy with these templates) your audience is just going to stick around until your entire message has been served.
Enough beating around the bush. Here are the templates.
This format might be simple, but if you choose the right message, it's also very effective. Lead with a strong statement, back it up with a quote, add supporting visuals and you're good to go.
Bring in some storytelling with this template - instead of telling people what kind of brand you are, show them, with a story that illustrates what you're all about.
Show your target market that you care about what they care about by connecting their problems or goals to your brand mission.
The 'Underlying Issue' Template
When good times come around, lead capture starts ticking and budgets fill out again, all this brand-dating you’ve been working on will pay off. Because your target market will know exactly which brand they want to live happily ever after with.
December 6, 2022
December 6, 2022
Marketing is absolutely essential to your business. It shouldn’t be treated as a “nice to have”, but rather as a core cog in the machinery of your operation. So make wise moves with your marketing budget now, and you’ll be able to survive a harsh winter and even emerge with more market share.
Some of the largest brands in the world only got there by growing while others shrank during recessions. In 2008, McDonald’s gobbled up market share from Burger King and KFC with a combination of exploiting cheaper advertising space, adding affordable premium coffee to give more reasons to visit throughout the day, and adopting a lower pricing strategy.
They used the opportunity that the recession brought, and reinforced the strength of their brand to their target audience. Businesses that innovated and took strides to react to the needs of their customers came out on top.
It may sound obvious – but is your messaging reflecting the reality of your customers right now, or are you selling something they don’t want to hear?
Ling Koay, Chief Brand Officer at Oneflow, joined our latest episode of Storykit Talks to bring her expertise: “Instead of talking about the dream scenario that you can have, our messaging is now talking about how you can maximize the investment that you have already made”.
Look at your messaging across the board, from advertising to customer support: are you being compassionate, reflecting the needs of the day and inspiring your audience to stay with you? "Think about the cost of doing nothing", said Ling Koay.
How do you justify every last penny / dime / cent of your brand marketing budget? By knowing what works and why.
There are two ways you can do this; the top down approach and the bottom up approach. They may be all too familiar to you, says Ling - but a refresher won’t hurt!
The bottom up approach from Benet and Field is a really simple calculation: your brand’s share of search. Compared to your competitors on Google Trends. If you have a drop in your share of search, you can be sure that six months later, you’ll see a drop in sales. It’s a correlation they’ve proven time and time again. So it’s crucial to establish a share of search metric in your company and invest in improving it.
The bottom down approach starts by identifying the market size of your category. If you went to the bank today, how much would they value your industry? Then, you correlate your percentage of share you have in that total addressable market. And then you get the percentage of market share.
While a brand is running a marathon, marketing is running in sprints. Because while you can measure and change marketing strategies daily, you can't really change your brand tactic, because your strategy remains the same.
Content that’s all over the place won’t stick, so build a content engine based on your brand beliefs”, said Ling Koay, Chief Brand Officer at Oneflow. Your goal is to become top-of-mind when a customer is considering their options, and to do that, you need to add to your brand’s footprint: while ebooks, whitepapers and blog articles all have their place – to be remembered, you’ll need to think about what your consumer is consuming: it’s probably videos.
Sounds expensive, we hear you say. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can repurpose existing content, from re-using old assets from shoots to using new formats to tell the same stories: make more from what you already have. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel!
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Ling Koay, Chief Brand Officer at Oneflow, joined episode 10 of Storykit Talks to bring her expertise at the helm of the Oneflow brand and shared what she’s learned from other brands in recessions and her favorite brand-building tactics with our Marketing Director, Jonna Ekman. Listen to the podcast here, or watch it on demand, here.
November 23, 2022
November 23, 2022
Well, yes. But it’s not as daunting as it might sound!
There’s a lot of talk about storytelling in marketing circles these days, from how you do your brand marketing or pitch your product, to creating a strategic narrative that supports your position in the market.
Storytelling can seem really BIG, and really time consuming. You’d be excused for wondering how you’re supposed to find the time to bring storytelling into your everyday content. Not to worry. When we say storytelling we don’t mean epic tales of heroes and villains (well, not always, and definitely not in the manner of a full length feature film).
But there’s something to be learnt from the way epic tales are told and why they work. And that something is creating your content with a narrative structure. Do that and you’re way more likely to hook your audience, keep them watching – and make sure they remember you and what you’re saying.
The narrative structure of a video, blog post or ad is not the specific information you’re presenting. The narrative structure is how you present that information and in what order.
Let’s take a simple example that most people can relate to. Your company releases a report – it could be annual financial results, it could be market research – and you need to create a post or article about that report. You might lead with the title of the report, mention the purpose and a few bullets of what’s covered, followed by a link. That’s one way to structure it.
Or you could lead with a major takeaway from the report that you know your audience will love, provide just enough information to pique attention, and then present the title of the report and where they can read more. That’s another way. The information is the same, but the structure is different.
It’s knowing how to use narrative structures that brings the power of storytelling to your content.
When we talk about using storytelling in your content, what we mean is making use of a narrative structure to convey your message in a way that supports the objective or goal of your content. Whether that’s to keep the audience consuming your content to the end, to follow a CTA, or to respond to your content in some other way.
But, coming up with an effective, original narrative structure every time you write an article, script a video or compose a post for social media isn't easy, and takes time that we’re not willing to spend.
Engaging narrative structures are everywhere, you see them in great marketing content, magazines, movies, books and TV. We’ve been using them to pass on information as long as storytelling has existed. If you're curious, a quick search will uncover a bunch of different ones that you can adapt for your own content.
Edit 05/12/22: We've built 99 templates based on the most effective narrative structures and content formats around. We call them Script Templates and they are here for the taking!
At Storykit we see these narrative structures as a way to bring the power of storytelling into all kinds of different content. By using well-designed and effective narrative formats as part of your content creation and distribution toolbox you’ll see benefits to productivity and performance:
If you produce content that engages your audience, you get better reach; the algorithm prioritises your content because people respond well to it, and your audience is more willing to share it.
It seems banal to say, but the added quality of making your content entertaining or engaging to your audience has a real impact on their ability to retain your message and respond to your CTA
Knowing what to expect helps the audience follow and understand the message you want to convey. Just look at some of the most addictive TV programs and you’ll see they’re built on one of a few formats that have been used forever.
With storytelling formats, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel with every new piece of content, and you’ll be able to plan and execute faster when the bulk of the work is done upfront!
When you already know what works, you can cut out guesswork and cut to the chase – instead of testing what to say, you’ll be able to tweak how you deliver it
Time and money goes into producing good content - so one of the most important things you need to do is distribute that content so it gets seen by the right people and your content ROI goes up.
Storytelling formats make repurposing and reformatting your content really efficient. Different people find the same article interesting for different reasons - the key to getting more people to consume your content is to present them with the right “bait”, so to speak. The right storytelling format is the key to reaching them. Here’s how:
1. Longer-form content, like a video, article or report, can be spliced into smaller pieces to suit each of your audience segments simply by finding a format that works and swapping out the points you highlight.
2. Formats help you distribute your content effectively. Depending on the nature of the channels your audience frequents, you’ll find that different formats work better for different channels, even if the underlying information is the same.“We have to tell the story differently on YouTube from the way we tell it on Instagram”, said Peder Bonnier, CEO & Founder of Storykit, on episode 9 of Storykit Talks Live.
In Storykit Talks ep. 9, Jonna & Peder dive into storytelling and talk about:
Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts
Curious about putting storytelling formats into practice?
You’ll find actionable tips in episode 8 of Storykit Talks: Why the formula for content efficiency is storytelling formats.
Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts
We dig into:
November 9, 2022
November 9, 2022
The best storytellers of all time didn’t need to reinvent the wheel: they followed clear narrative structures, and readers came back to turn page after page. Jealous? Don’t be. Follow narrative templates in your storytelling and:
Here’s a list of storytelling techniques that work just as well for a lecture as for a video or Facebook post. Read through and you’ll have your audience hooked on every word in no time.
Steve Jobs needs no introduction (but we’ll give you one anyway). As one of the most successful commercial storytellers of his time, he’s a crash course in how to tell stories about your brand and product without driving your audience away. We’re advocates for borrowing content and so was he – in fact, one of the most classic storytelling structures in his speeches was borrowed directly from Hollywood.
Steve Jobs divided his storytelling narratives into three acts: “Setup”, “Confrontation”, and “Resolution”
The marketer Dave Gerhardt at Drift sat down and studied Jobs’ lectures and created his version of Jobs' storytelling structure.
If you haven’t seen Simon Sinek's TED Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” then now’s the time. With his storytelling method, you can quickly notice what type of story ‘goes deep’:
We’re pulling the curtain back on this classic copywriter trick. Best of all, it’s actually easy to use in any type of storytelling:
This is another excellent trick borrowed directly from the copywriter world. You can use it to paint a picture in your story:
This model is great – and best of all, it’s so easy to remember too. Imagine three things: a star, a chain, and a hook. Now you’re ready to tell a stellar story.
Another way of looking at this structure is that the ‘star’ catches the audience's attention, the ‘chain’ loops them in by their need for the solution and the ‘hook’ drags them into the net and shows how they can find the solution.
Like a fine wine, Aristotle’s storytelling method has aged beautifully with time. Thousands of years ago, he mused that a story is composed of three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it sounds obvious, but it’s critical to use this to underpin your video storytelling: a really clear beginning, middle and end should create movement, feels familiar to your audience and gets to the point. Unless, of course, you’re a neighbour telling us about bin day… then there really is no end to the bin story!
“But surely a 30-second video can’t be a story?”, we hear you ask. Of course it can, and if you want to write a great script, you’ll have to regard it as just that.
If you think of all your content as stories, it’ll help drive every piece of content forwards along the way. Think of billboard ads; they tell entire stories in either a single picture or in just a few words. You know why? Because they start with the story. Now it’s your turn!
How to tell your story using two clever journalist tricks
Journalists perfect the art of expressing themselves concisely while still getting people to engage. Here are two clever tricks that most journalists use and how you can apply them to your storytelling and content.
If you’re reading an article, you should be able to understand what it concerns simply through reading the headline, first paragraph and a section of the running text or a quote. Don’t leave anything to the imagination.
The core of this storytelling method is based on the pragmatic fact that people seldom read an entire article or watch an entire video. If your message is at the end, there’s a great risk that no one will ever see it.
This is a great trick for any situation where you are trying to tell your audience a message. This trick is less useful in such instances when the audience has to understand the chain of events or in instances when there are arguments and counterarguments. But when it comes to straight news, the trick is unbeatable.
Do you like documentaries? Or longer articles? If so, chances are that you’re already familiar with this storytelling trick.
Simply put, this method consists of two steps:
Discover strategies to save time and maintain consistency, while maximizing your impact across platforms. We'll will share practical tips for automating routine tasks, creating content more effectively, and leveraging tools to engage with your audience.
Need videos for social media, sales, HR, or internal communication? With Storykit, any team can create professional videos. These videos can match their brand and work for any platform, format, or language. No editing skills are needed. Whether for LinkedIn, corporate presentations, or global campaigns, Storykit ensures your videos are engaging and optimised for impact.
It’s that time of year again—when we all start scrambling for ideas and templates to piece together our social media plan for the new year. Trust me, I’ve been there too. The endless Googling, the overcomplicated strategies… it can get overwhelming fast.
That’s why we're here to make it easy for you. We're giving you our social media plan for 2025—complete with all the resources and tips to help you nail it without the stress. Ready to steal it?
Storykit is the leading video automation platform. It helps thousands of clients in automating and optimizing their video production, boosting productivity, efficiency, and return on investment. With Storykit, you can put your video creation on autopilot.
Anyone! Storykit is made for companies and organizations and works great for anyone with communication needs of any kind. The tool is ideal for digital marketing, PR, HR, social media, corporate communication, sales, events, recruitment, customer success – every team.
With Storykit’s text-to-video AI functionality, you don’t need video editing experience or expensive equipment to create unique and amazing videos.
Absolutely not. Storykit’s intuitive AI-powered platform allows anyone to create professional videos quickly and seamlessly, without any video editing experience or special equipment.
Certainly. Storykit is designed to turn any text into eye-catching video, so it’s perfect for everything from social media posts to corporate communication and employer branding.
Whether you're aiming to engage with clients, disseminate information internally, or enhance your brand, Storykit simplifies the process. It helps you create high-quality videos that appeal to your audience.
Yes, they work like magic on your phone, large display screens, and in your keynotes. We even have customers using Storykit to make videos for their coffee machines!
You can create many things. From social media content and ads to employer branding and internal communications – plus educational videos that boost brand awareness, strengthen reputation, build loyalty, and deliver real impact. The possibilities are endless.
Yes, keeping your videos on-brand is a priority for us. Storykit ensures every video matches your brand guidelines, from fonts and colors to logos. For even more customization, simply reach out to us.
Yes, you can upload your own visuals and integrate them seamlessly into your videos. You can also add voiceovers and audio for a more engaging experience – available in Pro and Enterprise plans. Check out our full feature list.
Yes! Producing video content in various languages allows you to engage a worldwide audience.
Creating different videos for different platforms is simple and fast in Storykit. You can easily change the aspect ratio, assets, music, languages, and stories with just a few clicks. This means you can create videos tailored for all major platforms, including LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.
Storykit offers different pricing plans based on your needs. Book a call for a customized quote, tailored to your preferences.
Yes, we offer tailored plans for teams, companies and organisations of all sizes. Book a call to find the best plan for your video content needs.
The Pro and Enterprise plans have advanced features for companies and organizations that want to grow their video marketing. These include voiceovers, custom templates and modules, a premium library of videos, images, and music, and more. Check our feature list for details.
Absolutely, you can start your free trial and create your first video within minutes. No editing skills or credit card needed.
We offer extensive customer support, onboarding help, and useful resources. This way, you can always get the most from Storykit. Our Enterprise solution also includes a dedicated Enterprise Activation Manager to support you every step of the way.
Absolutely! Our API solution allows you to integrate AI-enhanced video generation into your existing tools. Contact us, and we’ll help you build a customized video production system that fits your needs.
Don’t wait to create! Reach out to us for a demo or start a free trial today!
