case study
How Zebra Technologies’ social media team creates videos in-house for use on its social media channels
Industry: Technology
Solution: End-to-end video creation for social media
Introduction
Zebra Technologies Corporation is a world leader in delivering innovative digital solutions, both hardware and software that enable businesses of all sizes to intelligently connect data, assets, and people in real time.
The social media team at Zebra is a part of the company’s global external communications organization and works with a number of departments across the company. The team initially needed a way to bring more video into their content strategy. With Socialive’s end-to-end video platform, they can record, edit, and publish snackable content all within their team.
Challenge
Reliance on other sources for video
Before Socialive, Zebra’s social media team largely depended on other internal teams and third-party resources for video content. Most videos shared on social media were ones created for other projects, such as case studies or larger campaigns.
The social team had no say in what videos were created.
“My team was really reactionary. We didn’t create anything. It left us in a position without much video content.”
Melinda Woods, Global Social Media Lead, Zebra Technologies
The occasional link to an existing video wasn’t cutting it for the social team. It left them in a position where they couldn’t build out a content strategy around video.
For Therese Van Ryne, Zebra’s senior director of external communications, her team wasn’t taking advantage of what she considers to be “gold” for audience engagement. She wanted her team to be self-reliant, create more snackable videos, and establish a content mix needed to stand out in today’s attention economy and attract an even more engaged audience.
“People want to watch a video of someone talking about the topic in addition to reading about it.”
Jessica Molesky, Social Media Specialist, Zebra Technologies
Solution
Equipping the social team with Socialive’s video platform
Zebra’s external communications team no longer relies on others to create video. With Socialive, they can create their own content whenever they choose.
The social team crowdsources recordings by sending a link to their presenter — no matter where they are — with all recordings immediately available to edit in the platform.
Independent of any external resources, the team uses the video platform to create a wide range of content including:
- Live and recorded in-person event promos
- Video podcasts
- Thought leadership livestreams
- Videos of employee initiatives
- Embedded video and audio recaps in blog posts
- Product announcements via LinkedIn Live
“I think the biggest value is having recorded content immediately. We can go in and edit, get a transcript, get a caption file, or pull out the audio. There’s a lot of flexibility right in the platform, so we can make snackable content, audiograms, and different content formats just from one video.”
Melinda Woods, Global Social Media Lead, Zebra Technologies
The social team is able to quickly repurpose recorded content, provide a live behind-the-scenes look into events, and pull captions or transcripts from new or existing videos whenever they need. It’s an easy-to-use solution that produces high-quality video for Zebra.
“The quality of the video and content we get surpasses any other meeting-type platform that I’ve used before. It’s crystal clear content and we’re able to work with different types of recordings from all users of it.”
Jessica Molesky, Social Media Specialist, Zebra Technologies
Winning in the attention economy with video
Since they’ve started creating their own videos in Socialive, Zebra’s external communications team has seen the excitement for video grow. Their new, efficient creation process helps keep their brand front of mind.“It is so important. We find this tool is really helpful in engaging our customers, partners, employees, and all of our stakeholders around the world through this recorded and live video content that we’re able to feed through all of our social media channels.”
Therese Van Ryne, Senior Director, External Communications, Zebra Technologies
Internally at Zebra, there’s an increased appetite for video, with other teams asking if they can use Socialive to create video. For the social team, it means they’ve gone from waiting for video to be served to them to now providing their expertise on video strategy.
“It feels like the possibilities are endless. We look internally and externally for ways that we can use the tool all the time, collaborating and working with other teams. We have the ability to say that we can use Socialive and get content that we might not have been able to before. It’s allowed us to be flexible and quick.”
Melinda Woods, Global Social Media Lead, Zebra Technologies
With a user-friendly video platform at their fingertips, the external communications team at Zebra now leads by example in video creation. Socialive is an important tool the team has used to provide more innovative content to their customers, partners, and employees that is exciting, informative, and valuable.
“I find the parallels between Socialive and Zebra are amazing in the fact that we're both helping our customers digitize and automate their workflows. Socialive is really doing that for our social media team, making video very automated for us versus working with a number of different agencies or relying on other teams to give us video to convey via social.”
Therese Van Ryne, Senior Director, External Communications, Zebra Technologies
Conclusion
Ready to learn how to record, edit, publish, and livestream professional video from anywhere? Request a demo to learn more about Socialive’s end-to-end video platform.
Key results
social media video in-house
multimedia content creation
edit and generate captions
social engagement
Key results:
social media video in-house
multimedia content creation
edit and generate captions
social engagement
Contributor: Therese Van Ryne, Senior Director, External Communications, Zebra Technologies
Contributor: Melinda Woods, Global Social Media Lead, Zebra Technologies
Contributor: Jessica Molesky, Social Media Specialist, Zebra Technologies