How to set up new video creators for success

Key takeaways:
End-to-end video platforms make it easy for anyone to create
Empowering teammates is more effective than outsourcing
A templated approach makes video creation repeatable and scalable

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So you’ve got this nifty new platform that’s supposed to help you create more video content at scale. Great! But how can you actually get the most out of the tool — especially since your time is still limited?

You could take the time to train a few other people across the company in video. Or spend a little money to bring in people who know what they’re doing. Maybe just leave it all to the AI magic within the platform?

If you’re using an intuitive end-to-end video platform, the answer is “none of the above.”

The way to get the most out of the platform and kick your video program into high gear is to set up guardrails and entrust people across the organization to become DIY content creators.

With your strategic oversight and the platform’s user-friendly configuration, creating a templated approach is a reality. It’s how you’ll achieve repeatable, scalable video creation.

Here’s what that looks like in action.

Democratizing video creation: the VMware story

Before we break down the tactical “how-to’s” of setting up a new creator for success, why even use a video platform at all?

Many companies know that taking on any SaaS platform can lead to greater costs if no one knows how to use it or if it just recreates the manual bottlenecks in a virtual environment. Video is no different.

A true solution must fundamentally improve the approach and make it scalable — without the need to rip and replace tech or retrain people. This is how VMware has produced six-figure savings across each video project.

Before using Socialive, each part of VMware’s creation process was done in stages. Long-form videos and livestreams required travel, lengthy file transfers, and post-production. But the real pain was that there had to be a video expert involved every step of the way.

Members of the video department found themselves as production assistants rather than content strategists.

With an intuitive setup that includes some automation, there’s much less of a need to have an expert in the weeds.

Let the platform do the training

While the main idea in software and UX design is to make it so anyone can use it, there should still be resources available for new video creators.

For someone who’s interacting with video for the first time, even seemingly simple things might be overwhelming. It could be the screen share vs. virtual background buttons in the recording interface or clipping tools vs. overlays in the editing bay.

This is where the SaaS model adds that extra value. Customer success and guidance are included, as well as a knowledge hub of best practices (like further how-to content for producers) and an LMS to guide anyone just starting out.

With in-platform tutorials and AI virtual assistants (think the 2023 versions of Clippy or Siri) to guide the user within the platform, there are plenty of extra ways to help get new users comfortable. That’s how you’ll get those inexperienced creators making pro-quality content.

Setting up video templates

The trick to making stunning, brand-compliant video accessible to all is to work within a templated approach. From the printing press to the assembly line, it just makes sense to implement a repeatable process.

With Socialive and similar end-to-end video platforms, post-production capabilities are built with this approach in mind. In Socialive, every run of show from a livestream, scenes and layouts from a recording session, and editing configuration are saved to be reused.

Particularly for serial content, like a podcast series or a formatted webinar, this makes it easy to create new content without starting from scratch.

Within our own TL;DR series, we used a template to create it. The opening animation, music bed, background, layout, and outro are all ready to go. All we need to do is get the new recording, run it through the template, and we have our new video.

But don’t just take our word for it, think of the real-world use cases and the different approaches in play.

Video templates for financial advisors

Financial advisors are able to get their content to market faster by working within templates. Whenever news breaks or the market shifts, advisors quickly create their recordings, apply the approved branding for that type of video, and are ready for final content reviews and publishing. All within minutes.

Video templates for corporate comms

Corporate communications staff don’t need to put in a work order for every employee spotlight, CEO update, or video memo. They have the ability send the subject a script, the presenter’s recording is automatically made ready for editing, and the final video is ready in a few clicks.

Guardrails to create with approved branding

The more templated the approach, the easier it is to scale content creation. But perhaps most importantly — templates are a way to ensure each creation is on brand and has a consistent look and feel.

The concept of letting creators new to video run off on their own will rightfully scare the daylights out of many brand teams.

That’s why templates are so powerful. They remove the risk of someone erroneously adding an unapproved logo, a crunchy graphic, or playing unlicensed music.

Democratizing video creation doesn’t make sense if the person without training is given a blank canvas. They might be able to fill it and create a passable video, but it won’t hit your brand’s expectations. That’s why it’s key to set up a template to ensure the hands-on creator has no choice but to create on-brand content.

How new video creators benefit from AI

Now it’s time to talk about how artificial intelligence factors in.

AI isn’t here to replace the creatives, quite the contrary. It’s here to further enhance the abilities of those new to video. But make no mistake, the creatives are still the brains of the operation.

The whole point of AI is to make it faster and easier to bring a creative vision to life. But where does that vision come from? What sparks true inspiration?

It’s not in the machines.

With just a touch of guidance from the creative team, AI enables project owners, talent, and others to create the video. AI does the dirty work without losing the quality and creativity each project demands.

The biggest gains from AI come in editing and applying pre-set templates.

Automated video editing

Editing has traditionally been the trickiest piece of the puzzle for video. Anything that makes it faster and easier saves time, saves money, and makes video creation that much more accessible.

There are a number of ways AI makes a difference, most of which we’ve covered in previous pieces.

But the short of it is that AI can easily handle many of the mundane tasks professional editors shouldn’t need to worry about. Creating a caption file, removing obvious errors, color matching, and writing a video description can all be done by AI.

AI presents a way to shave dozens of hours and thousands of dollars from larger video projects. But more importantly, nearly anyone can perform some quick yet polished edits with the power of AI.

Automated video templates

More efficient than faster, easier editing? Skipping it altogether.

We already walked through the ways a templated approach makes video creation scalable and easy for creators of all abilities. But with AI, there will be some cases where no post-production or editing is needed.

With natural language processing (the same tech that powers our automated captions and transcripts), the backend AI can recognize things like topics, speakers, brand names, and the contents of the video.

This means the AI can match preset templates from the video team and pair them with the video. This takes the raw footage, pulls the desired take, adds a bit of automated polish, and has the video ready for final review moments after the recording session ends.

Transform everyone into video creators

At the end of the day, any platform that promises “faster, easier” video creation has to deliver. It’s not enough to focus on those who know all the tricks of the trade.

You’ll see the most value by focusing on those who aren’t as comfortable with video. That’s how you’ll truly scale your efforts.

After all, a rising tide lifts all ships, and Socialive is here to help you ride the wave. Book time with one of our video experts to set your path to transforming all of your new video creators into full-fledged experts in an instant.