Today’s C-level leaders must contend with being in the spotlight on behalf of their organizations. They represent their companies’ brands, reputations, and cultures — as well as their personal brands. As demand for more authenticity continues to grow from both within and outside the organization, many C-suite leaders have recognized the importance of video for successful executive communications.

But just how are executives positioning themselves to be accessible, authentic, and empathetic through video content? We sat down with leaders from several fast-growing tech companies in Episode 1 of our Creator Economy for the Enterprise webinar series to find out.

Lessons from a chief marketing officer

As the CMO of Demandbase, an end-to-end targeting and personalization platform for businesses, Jon Miller is responsible for leading the software company’s account-based, go-to-market strategy and execution. His advice for creating winning C-suite video content includes:

Do’s

  1. Balance thought leadership with other content. It’s easy to conflate the two, but true thought leadership is rare according to Jon. While content should be entertaining, thought leadership is often provocative and contrarian. Both are essential to the modern executive’s toolbelt, but they often require different video strategies.
  2. Leverage third parties. Real thought leaders recognize the value of other ideas. Consider referencing trusted sources and partners in your video content, or inviting guests outside the organization to share the virtual stage.
  3. Distribute your content. Creating engaging videos doesn’t do your organization any good if no one watches them. It may sound obvious, but too many leaders fail to meet their audiences where they are by distributing content across multiple channels.

Don’ts

  1. Be self promotional. Your ideas should speak for themselves. And if you have something worth listening to, your audience will be compelled to follow you — and your company — wherever you go.
  2. Focus on quantity over quality. It’s always better to create fewer video assets that actually tell the story you want to tell than it is to create lots of content that doesn’t tell the right story.
  3. Be boring. Today’s audiences expect highly engaging and snackable video content. And as “Zoom fatigue” continues to burden viewers, your average video conferencing call simply won’t be enough to keep them entertained.

Looking for more do’s and don’ts of video content creation for the C-suite? Check out Part 2 and Part 3 of our blog series for even more expert tips.