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How OX2 is empowering people to embrace renewable energy through video
— Videos are far more engaging than written content; they enable us to tell complex stories in a clear way, as opposed to relying solely on lengthy articles and press releases.
— LinkedIn is probably where a bulk of our videos end up. This is where we talk to all of our 11 markets, so we try to keep the content on a top level for a broad audience.
What results have you seen on LinkedIn since using Storykit?
— Website visitors and LinkedIn growth are the obvious effects that we have seen since starting with Storykit. Our LinkedIn has grown by almost 100% over the last year from 12,000 to 23,000 followers. Obviously, other factors also play a role, but we see a high level of engagement on LinkedIn — reactions, comments, and a lot of shares. So that's very positive.
— We also use videos for events. I find it really useful for both internal and external events.
How do you use videos for events?
— We can use video to set the tone for an event. Whether it’s the capital markets day or a community consultation meeting around a wind farm, it's a good way to start a meeting. It adds a level of professionalism as well.
— For example, at The Capital Markets Day, which we held a couple of months ago, we created a video that was basically 10 facts about renewable energy, as a way to kick-start the meeting and set the tone. Here we wanted to talk about the rollout of renewables in the energy transition so we started very high level and then further discussed our role in that.
— On the other hand, we have community consultation events where we go out and try to get buy-in locally. For example, we held one at a local community in Sweden where we wanted to start up a new onshore wind park. Here, we wanted to explain the benefits of renewable energy to the local community, like how many homes it can power, local jobs it can help create, and how it ties in with other infrastructure projects in the area. In this case, we created a video that was targeted at a very narrow audience.
— Storykit is valuable because it enables us to reach both a broad and niche audience through video. On LinkedIn, we can engage a wide range of viewers, while at events, we can tailor our content to specific audiences, making it more targeted and relevant.
— I think that working on videos together internally with colleagues also serves a purpose. It forces us to be brief and concise with the format. That is not always easy for people but I think that it makes everyone a little bit better at communication.
Any ideas for how you will use video in the future?
— We are growing as a company and are always looking for new talent, so I think we will be ramping up our employer branding efforts with videos in the future.
— In terms of usage, we are also starting to set up some formats for recurring activities to make things easier and work smarter ourselves. For instance, we now have a 30-second video template that we use for our quarterly reports to make them a bit more interesting. We are also doing one for new projects added to our portfolio since we often communicate the same stuff – location, megawatts, when we’re going into construction, and that type of thing.
Is there anything that you would like to add?
Storykit is fun to use and it works well with the way I think. I grew up reading comic books so I feel right at home here, telling a story frame by frame. In addition to the format, the availability of stock material mixed with our own media makes it look really good.
Founded in 2004, OX2 is a renewable energy company that develops, builds, and manages renewable energy assets, including onshore and offshore wind farms, solar farms, and energy storage. With operations in 11 countries across Europe and Australia, OX2 is leading the way in renewable energy communication and bringing awareness to the energy crisis, climate change, and national security. Check out some of their videos below!
– For us, a lot of the content creation is being dealt with centrally, and with 11 countries, there are a lot of stories that we could tell and we do tell. But being a small team we need to be smart about it.
— Storykit enables us to create engaging content at scale. For instance, getting access to stock libraries in Storykit is useful because it's hard to get photos and video clips from our own operations all over the world.
— I used Storykit at my previous employer. Not as hands-on as today but it was definitely part of the work we did in that team. Bringing it on at OX2 was an easy decision.
How was it getting started with Storykit?
— I think that the way the start-up was handled, along with the customer success process was really good. The training was fantastic.
— Following the training sessions, we’ve had regular check-ins with the Storykit team and updates to see how we are getting on as well. I think that is a really great way of working.
Niklas currently takes charge of video creation in Storykit for OX2, producing a minimum of two videos per week. However, as their team grows, Niklas plans to get more people involved in the creation process.
In a rapidly expanding company, Niklas Franck, the Communications Director at OX2, recognized the need for an improved communication strategy to effectively convey their key messages and foster a deeper understanding of renewable energy.
— We needed a way to help people understand renewable energy. There is a big energy transition already happening, and we need to get people to know this and realize the potential of renewable energy.
Niklas explains that there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to renewable energy and that OX2 needed a way to spread awareness about the current state of renewables and dispel common myths.
— For example, we develop all our projects without government subsidies. A lot of people don’t realize that this is possible since it wasn’t 10 years ago.
In order to get information out there, Niklas and his team were just sharing press releases and text posts on LinkedIn. However, they knew that it wasn’t achieving the impact they wanted.
— With operations in 11 countries across Europe and Australia, we have experienced rapid growth, expanding our team from 200 to over 500 employees in just over a year.
— Our comms team grew some, but not on the scale that was needed.
How Planet Tracker is driving sustainable finance through captivating videos
After replacing their GIFs and text posts with videos, Nicole’s team has seen more engagement from their key audience on LinkedIn.
— Since starting with Storykit, we have seen that our engagement has gone up on social media and that we are reaching a wider audience with our videos. That has been very positive.
Planet Tracker has also gained a lot more followers, which is an important factor for their success.
— Since we use LinkedIn as a marketing tool for our research, the more relevant people that we have following us, the wider our outreach is, and ultimately that is what we are trying to achieve.
— We want to share these novel ideas with a wider audience and Storykit has definitely helped us increase our follower count so we can do that.
— Over the past three months, since we started using Storykit, we have roughly grown our followers by 50%. We can not attribute everything to video because we had one report that went viral as well but it definitely has contributed.
What type of videos are you making in Storykit?
— We mainly use Storykit to communicate key insights from the research reports and blogs that we publish. We publish anywhere between five to seven pieces of content a month, which is also roughly how many videos we make.
What is your process for turning your reports into videos?
— Our reports are often quite long. So what we usually do is we try to map out what our key messages are beforehand so we know what each slide or each part is going to communicate. After that, we create the storyboards and specifically look for the right images and the right ways to communicate that particular message.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Personally, I am really happy that we found Storykit because it makes it a lot easier for us to communicate with our core audiences and has improved the way that we can communicate with them. All in all, really positive.
Planet Tracker is a non-profit sustainable finance think tank that is on a mission to make the world a better place by aligning capital markets with planetary boundaries. By producing groundbreaking research, they're showing investors how to take nature into account and make it a part of their investment analysis and decisions. Want to see how they're making a difference? Check out some of their videos below!
— I think we had the information but we just didn't have the right tools to display it for social media.
— Since starting with Storykit, the most impressive thing is realizing that we can create professional videos ourselves.
— We have worked with agencies before, but since we are a non-profit, outsourcing is incredibly costly for us to do. Finding a tool that is accessible to us on a continuous basis and allows us to leverage video as part of our core strategy for all of our different research programs is a really big positive.
— It’s also really nice being able to create videos ourselves without having to outsource them to another party because it gives us more freedom to experiment, test out different visions and get more people involved internally, instead of just having someone outside of Planet Tracker do everything.
Even though Nicole and her team had never worked with video before, they were able to get up and running with Storykit in no time.
— I found using Storykit to be really intuitive. I think once you do it a couple of times and try out the different frames and options that you have it’s quite easy to use.
According to Nicole Kozlowski, Head of Engagement at Planet Tracker, their main goal is to get companies to become more nature-positive.
— We recognize that the financial markets play a really important role in achieving this, so our aim is to show them how they can take nature into account and make it part of their investment analysis and hopefully ultimately part of their investment decisions by distributing research that advocates for this.
— Think about some university research that you read. It's not something that is very obvious to market in a particular way.
Nicole used to rely on Canva-created GIFs to tell their stories. However, she recognized the shift in viewing habits toward videos and knew she wanted to explore this medium.
— We knew that we wanted to use video to reach a wider audience. When you're competing with so much good content out there, the question is, how do you capture people's attention?
— We mainly communicate with professionals when they are at their job and less so when they are out of their work environment. And speaking from experience, I find that I mostly stay put when I see a well-made video and something that’s informative.
How Azelio is using video to drive awareness for renewable energy storage solutions
— Our first goal was to increase our video output and we’ve really managed to do that.
With Storykit, the Azelio team has been able to make different types of videos and distribute a wider variety of video content to their target markets than ever before.
— Storykit has enabled us to be even more creative with our messaging. We’re making videos for event promotion and recruitment, while also building brand, and distributing content addressing not just the education or awareness phase of the marketing funnel, but all levels - which has been great.
Azelio has also noted a positive and strong reception to the videos they are sharing on their social platforms.
— Not only can we see that we’re finding our target viewers, but we’re also able to serve them with valuable content, which is crucial. We’re continuing to see the results show, through a good amount of engagement and impressions.
— We created a video titled 'Everybody's talking about renewable energy,' to highlight the fact that many conversations about renewables overlook the essential topic of energy storage, which is something you need if you are going to implement solar and wind power on a wide enough scale to meet net-zero goals. The video was well-received, and we're happy to see that our colleagues are now using it.
— It’s a good tip for Content producers to refresh messages you’ve used before, when these are still relevant and interesting - and Storykit provides a way to do this. We had a series of effective posts that we wanted to use as the basis for new content, and we repurposed these into videos to breathe new life into good ideas.
— The templates can lend themselves to other forms of video for which they aren’t actually intended. For example, the other day I used a slide from an event template to make a video promoting an insights article on our website. Now I have a 10-to-15-second video I can replicate when something new drops on the site, bringing it to people’s attention on our social channels.
— When we participate in events, Storykit adds new possibilities for the way we can communicate where we are in the world, and what interesting things are going on.
— Recently we exhibited at the World Future Energy Summit - a high profile event for professionals from the renewable energy, solar and storage industries. I immediately started taking footage of the location in Dubai, and from the event itself. That enabled us to produce several videos, including a really useful roundup of our day-to-day activities. Before, this would have taken a while to edit together all the material, but now that process is much quicker.
— That’s an example of where the tool has driven the type of content that we wanted to make.
Captured footage combined with the professionalism that Storykit offers, can lead to a really cool end result.
— We’re using some of the videos we produce on our website as well. Those are really good to keep the content fresh and engaging for visitors.
Do you have any final thoughts you would like to add?
— Maybe a slight downside - I find that the Storykit music options stick in my head - I have a dozen or so favorite songs that I like to rotate through when making videos, and some of them are incredibly catchy!
Azelio is changing the way we use renewable energy, by offering a long-duration energy storage solution that works with solar and wind. Their cutting-edge technology provides clean electricity and heat on demand - which is a game-changer for businesses and end-users around the world who are struggling to secure sustainable and reliable power. Checkout some of their Storykit videos below!
For example, when the UN recently announced the release of an important climate report in a press conference in the afternoon, Kristian quickly took a template from Storykit and made a video out of it.
— Onboarding was really easy. After I made my first video, I couldn’t wait to get into Storykit and play with the tool more. I think it's great fun that the creation process goes so quickly.
Kristian points out that a big plus point for Storykit is being able to go into video creation using different approaches.
— It’s nice having the option to start either with a template or just with your text. Depending on the type of video we’re making, sometimes I already have a script prepared in a Word document, whereas other times I prefer to use a pre-existing template as a starting point. Either way, the process is smooth.
Along with being flexible and user-friendly, it was important for Azelio to be able to maintain their strong brand identity.
— In Storykit, it’s great that you can experiment and present your brand in different and creative ways, while staying true to your voice. I use the text highlighting function a lot, and I’m enjoying finding new things I can do with our brand colors, and our assets.
Kristian also enjoys having the power to create professional-looking videos using his own footage.
— I love the fact that not everything has to be uber-professional-looking before it goes into the tool and becomes part of your creative process. You can use mobile phone camera footage - then edit it and apply effects and styling options - and come out with something really authentic and effective.
Kristian Flanagan, Content Manager at Azelio, already knew that video was a powerful medium for communicating the type of complex information that companies with advanced technologies often need to talk about.
— We’ve developed a leading solution in a relatively new area of the energy market, and the technological aspects can sometimes be challenging to put across in a way that’s easily understandable.
— Storykit's script-based approach to storytelling enables us to distill detailed information, delivering it with striking visuals and in a way that viewers can easily digest.
— Because of the nature of the long-duration energy storage industry, we often dive into important topics like climate change and sustainability. Video is a great tool for communicating these concepts in an engaging way, while raising people's awareness.
Kristian and the team recognize the importance of responding quickly to news and trends, to maintain Azelio’s status as an industry thought leader.
— You can get excellent results with tools like Premiere Pro, but it might take a bit of time. When things move quickly, sometimes there’s a very limited window to develop your content and get it out there.
How the EPF is revamping their communication strategy with video
— We have several types of videos that we make. Some are long and some are very short. For instance, we have standard internal communications that we put on our intranet to notify employees about events coming up.
The EPF will also be launching an internal interview campaign that will make it easier for them to navigate internal resources like documents.
— Those kinds of videos help to motivate people internally and make communication more dynamic and interactive.
— With video we can really show everything that we do.
The EPF creates a number of external videos explaining what they do, what sites they work on, and the themes on which they work: biodiversity, innovation, etc.
— In our videos, we do a lot of talking about land recycling. However, we have other missions that are closely connected to this such as preserving biodiversity, flora and fauna, and asbestos recycling — the types of things that are important for the environment but not very fun and pretty to read about. For instance, currently, we are creating a short video about biodiversity, inspired by the Peregrine falcons that are nesting.
— Storykit helps us communicate in a dynamic and modern way, on subjects that need to be understandable to everyone.
The EPF is also focusing on creating a lot of videos that boost their brand image and reputation.
— We have a lot of open positions in recruitment and we have a real need to stand out. When you say the words ‘land recycling’, it’s not necessarily something that generates excitement. So it’s important that we explain why it’s worth joining us for future recruits.
— Video is really a medium that stands out in social networks and reaches the target we want to catch.
— Around the holidays we created a video advent calendar and had great feedback from everyone who received it. Some of the board of directors, who are also elected officials, told us that they took pleasure every morning in opening their computers and seeing what would be there. This was a victory for us since on the branding side it worked well.
They have also noticed that their video posts on social media get more views and shares than posts with just text and images.
— Our staff also uses our videos in meetings because they are so easy to share.
Do you have any final thoughts you would like to share?
— Since starting with Storykit, we really appreciate the regular meetings that we have with our customer success manager because when you invest in a solution like this where you are not experts, typically promises are made and you start strong, but then the support and momentum gradually fade away.
— I think that the human support you get with Storykit really makes it the complete solution. Having this type of support is often promised, but with Storykit, they have really followed through. It feels like we are on an annual contract that is truly shared, and that's highly appreciated.
The EPF is a French public institution that gives new life to unused or contaminated land and buildings through land recycling. With their projects related to land management, urban planning, and environmental sustainability, they're champions of sustainable development practices in France. Checkout some of their Storykit videos below!
— Storykit stood out to me since it is an online tool with which you can work independently.
Compared to other solutions Aurélie had talked to, it felt like Storykit could offer the support as well as the features they needed.
— The technical solution seemed really complete to us. I needed videos for social networks and internal communications on our intranet, to pass messages for recruitments which were a bit complicated.
Storykit’s solution is perfect because it offers ready-made templates along with a large library of imagery and music that makes it easy for Aurélie and her team to put videos together quickly.
— What I really like about Storykit is that when we write a script today, we have several ways to deploy it, whether it is very guided with templates or not.
— It is also great having a large database of images and video clips because we are always able to find images that correspond to the message we want to convey. So creating videos is really easy and quite simple, and when we need help we just call our customer success manager who finds a solution, which is also really enjoyable.
The EPF, a French public institution that specializes in land recycling, operates within a unique niche, making it challenging to communicate their messages to both partners and potential recruits.
Aurélie Minguet Ammeux, Head of Communication at the EPF in France, saw the potential that video could have for their internal and external communications.
She knew that external service providers that require long deadlines and large budgets wouldn’t be the right fit and wanted to find a tool they could use in-house.
How Peab recruits more women through engaging video content
— Just in the past year, we have produced more than 300 videos with the help of Storykit, says Carina Nilsson, who is in charge of communications.
What are the important ingredients to get women interested in you as an employer in the content you create?
– Being honest and showing what reality is and looks like. It's important to have a personal tone with the recipient. If you want to reach women, it's important to show women in the content we create to give a sense of identification. We try to use our employees in all the content we produce for social media as much as possible, says Carina.
Peab is one of the Nordic region's leading construction and civil engineering companies that has been contributing to community development for over 60 years. Checkout some of their Storykit videos below!
Peab found that the most effective way to attract the women candidates they want, is to promote the presence of women within their workforce through video.
— To attract women, we must show the women who work for us, who are "ordinary" women that most people can identify with. For example, we have a series where female employees have filmed themselves to get more women to join the industry. These have had incredibly high engagement on social media.
Maria Wilund, the PR manager at Peab, knows that having more women in the construction industry is important.
— We know that mixed workplaces perform better, but we also have a major skills shortage. Our industry has difficulty finding personnel to recruit, so both men and women are needed - it is not just men who can build society.
When it comes to recruiting, they found that social media was a better platform for them then traditional ads.
— We used to work with traditional job ads when we were recruiting, and we noticed an incredible response with many more applications when we started recruiting on social media.
Peab knew that making more videos was crucial for communicating effectively, whether it's for ads, training, or social media and needed a solution that would enable them to do that.
ACTA Medical is transforming health education one impactful video at a time
Berit has been able to create videos about medical information that is perfect for social media platforms where her audience and customers are.
— The results with the Storykit videos have been amazing. In just three months, I saw a 413% increase in engagement on LinkedIn.
And after one year, video with Storykit has helped ACTA grow:
— They’ve also created alot of interesting discussions on LinkedIn, both in terms of the videos themselves, as well as the gut health and microbiome content that I’m sharing.
In addition, Berit has had people contact her separately through DMs and in conversation at industry events.
— I have had people come up to me and say, “I’ve seen your videos on LinkedIn and I love them.” I used to get a little bit of engagement, but certainly, no one ever came up to me at a party and said “I love your gut health videos”, and they do now with Storykit.
For Berit, it is really important that people not only engage with messages but that they actually learn something and act on something that they didn't know the week before — in terms of gut health they might eat differently next week.
— The feedback that I am getting is that people understand the complex topics better. So the videos from Storykit really help you communicate complex topics in a really engaging and fun way.
— The best thing is when they actually say, I’ve watched your video, I’ve learned something and I want to learn more. That’s an amazing thing.
— These text videos are also ideal for my website and health blog that is due to launch in the next few weeks and I think we will also use them for Instagram and Twitter over time.
How many videos do you create currently?
— I post 2-3 times a week and make around 10+ Storykit videos in a month. I plan to ramp that up when I move full-time with the website and health blog!
Do you have any final thoughts you would like to add?
— Storykit is a fantastic tool to help enhance science or whichever story you want to create. It helps people with no video experience, like me, share our information and content in a much better way.
— I think that investment in time and resources really pays back many times over in the feedback and engagement with your customers and with people in general.
ACTA Medical is an education and communication-based company that specializes in providing medical communication and information for the pharmaceutical industry, as well as for biotech and healthcare advocates. Their mission is to gain a thorough understanding of the scientific and healthcare information available and analyze how it impacts our health behaviors, with the ultimate goal of helping people live healthier lives. See how they are achieving this with Storykit.
When Berit discovered Storykit, she was able to take her text-heavy posts on LinkedIn and transform them into easily digestible text-first videos instead.
— Making videos out of text is great. Being a scientist, I think it is really great to have the text and video together, to really digest important health information. I didn’t think it would be possible for me to create videos like these due to cost, time and resources, but with Storykit it is.
Prior to Storykit, Berit had experience only with traditional video production. This was the first time she used video software herself.
— From getting to know the software to publishing my first video went really fast. When onboarding, the Storykit support team really helped me understand how to get the most out of the Storykit tool which is really valuable because it makes you an expert and helps you get up and running really quickly.
In addition to learning how to use the tool, the Storykit support team also helped Berit learn how to tell her stories in the best way.
— The personalized support from Storykit made a huge difference in really understanding how best to tell the story because I’m a bit of a science nerd at heart and go on and on. With the support from my customer success manager at Storykit, I was able to focus on what story to tell and how to tell it so that it is engaging.
In addition, the library of videos and images that Berit has access to as a Storykit user helps her enhance her stories when she’s creating them.
— The platform helps me to shape the health story, or scientific story, with images so it is more impactful. This makes it more accessible too because text and images are fine alone, but they're traditional and not as fun. I think science should be fun as well as informative.
— I wanted to find a new solution because I love science — and am particularly passionate about gut health, which isn’t a super sexy topic — and wanted to find an engaging and accessible way to communicate information that is very important for both physical and mental health.
As someone who works in the medical field, Berit knew that video was a great way to communicate health information. However, she also knew that professional bespoke video shoots take too much time, energy and money and that they aren't formatted for social audiences.
— There is a trend now towards providing bite-sized, on-the-go, evidence-based information that's available in a digestible way. Since people tend to scroll quickly through platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter when seeking health information, it's crucial to make important research and evidence available in a way that's accessible to them.
Berit knew that if she wanted to stand out on platforms like LinkedIn, she needed to be able to distribute her information through bite-sized and informative videos that she could create herself.
