Starlog

Don’t Work Harder Next Year, Work Smarter

The Slowdown/Speedup

From about December 10th on, or maybe even earlier, work at many companies either slows down, or speeds up. Retailers and service providers from restaurants, to airlines, to shipping companies certainly get busier. But meantime, B2B sales slow to a crawl in several industries according to Insight PRM. This is also true with certain manufacturers, spring and summer seasonal businesses, and several corporate offices. The time tracking platform Replicon reports that two thirds of workers are less productive in December. 

If you find yourself in this slower lane, December can be the perfect month to take stock and assess your needs and goals for the upcoming year. And since Hybrid Moon is in the video and photography content business, our focus here will be on your visual assets and how to prepare for an outstanding 2024.

Video:

What kind of video assets are you going to want in the new year? Are you going to need footage of your offices, labs or manufacturing facilities? Customer testimonials? Staff soundbites for everything from recruiting employees to a new product launch? Coverage of a meeting with your strategic partners, trade show or convention? An international event? A case study? 

Have you thought about your video needs for social media and how they wrap around key events in your upcoming calendar year? Entertaining people on social media will be a top industry trend in 2024. Yes, even for “serious businesses” according to a report from Hootsuite, and that’ll take planning. The report concluded that the top reason people use social media is to unwind and be entertained, and 56% of consumers thought that companies should be more relatable on social media, while 32% thought companies had low-quality content. That means forethought and concepting should be at the forefront of your social media videos.

How about visual assets for your website? Several sources recommend updating sites once or twice a year. 

Digital Asset Management

Many companies have a Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform for photography and other content assets. But not everyone realizes how quickly these assets become dated while other companies don’t even have a DAM platform. Choosing the right one requires several considerations. Like, what are you going to use your system for? Marketing? Training? Sharing with a vendor? Will a new platform be replacing an older one? Which DAM platform is right for your particular needs and provides the best collaborative access? What kind of files will be the most compatible for all users? These are the types of things to consider as you audit your photography and other content assets.

Security of Assets:

As companies become more responsive to hacks, many IT departments have issues with commonly used software to share assets. Dropbox, for example, is a fine company. But some IT departments recommend not using Dropbox for security reasons. What is the best way to share visual assets? 

The Advantages of Planning Ahead:

When you take a few minutes and do your video and photography organizing for the upcoming year, the advantages can truly make a huge difference. Here’s just a few examples:

• There’s time to get buy-in in December. Use the slower days to talk to other departments and stakeholders about your video and photographic needs which are, after all, the calling cards and first impressions of your company. 
• December is a great time to talk about new ideas. If you’re going to shoot a video that doesn’t look like the “typical company video”–which we highly recommend–give yourself the time to plan it out. 91% of all companies use video as a key marketing tool but there is also a lot of “sameness” out there. Be strategic about how to build an emotional bond with your customers and tell a story. You can do this in the less hectic days of December.
• When you plan things out during less busy times, you’re being proactive for your brand and all the things that help to define it: the video for that next trade show, the video on your landing page, the new product launch. Nobody wants to be caught off guard and be forced into a knee-jerk reaction.

We hope we’ve given you some food for thought. A really smart tradition at this time of year is to take a few minutes and assess your video and photography needs, then call Hybrid Moon. We’re easy to remember, you see our billboard in the sky all the time. Think about us the next time you’re heading over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house.