10 Tips to Making a Great Corporate Interview Video: The Ultimate Guide
In today’s digital age, companies are increasingly turning to corporate interview videos as an effective method of showcasing their brand and culture.
Well-produced corporate interviews can help you connect with potential customers, investors and employees. But creating an exceptional video interview, one that really resonates with your audience, can be a challenging task.
It requires careful planning to get the most out of every corporate interview or video podcast. So, we’ve put together 10 video tips to ensure your content grabs the audience’s attention and holds it until the final credits roll.
What is a corporate interview video?
Corporate interview videos are an authentic way to tell your company’s story and connect with potential customers.
They’re a flexible and effective marketing tool. You can use this video format to personalise the journey within your firm or shed light on a particular aspect or department of your business.
A video podcast also provides value for money. You can edit a comment that really hits home into sound bites that are perfect for social media and capitalise on the latest trends.
So, where do you start when putting together a corporate interview video? Who should be in the interview hot seat for the video calls? How can you guarantee their answers will become engaging content?
Define your goals and target audience
Before you begin filming your corporate interviews, it’s important to know and understand who you’re trying to talk to, and what you want the video to achieve.
Is the corporate video part of a recruitment drive, or is it being used to raise brand awareness? Will the interview footage be seen on several social media platforms, or is it exclusively for your website’s landing page?
Once you’ve identified the target audience and established what you want to say with your corporate interview eg the video strategy, you can move on to the next phase.
Choosing the interviewee
The person answering your questions is at the heart of your corporate interview video, so it’s important to choose someone who is knowledgeable, articulate and passionate about your business.
Consider an employee who is an expert in a particular field or who has unique insights into an aspect of your company’s culture.
Alternatively, you can showcase how a company executive is regarded among industry leaders, or even canvass the opinions of your most recent satisfied customer.
Bear in mind that, no matter how appealing a talking head may be, not everyone is comfortable with the camera rolling. The ideal person is at ease with a conversational interview, with relaxed body language.
They will speak slowly, maintain eye contact and give specific answers in their own words, using complete sentences.
Plan your questions
Even the simplest talking head interview requires some pre-interview planning, and the quality of your questions is critical to creating a successful corporate video production.
You should seek to elicit insightful and meaningful answers from your interviewee. Prepare questions that are based on solid research and an understanding of who they are and their relationship to your business.
The easiest way to avoid ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers in a real interview? Craft open ended questions that include key information and will encourage discussion.
If possible, send them to your interview subject ahead of time, so they can come up with interesting answers that are caught on video.
Whether you are filming an in-person interview or a remote interview, have a script or storyboard to hand to make sure their answers always go in the right direction.
Don’t forget to give them the opportunity to offer their final thoughts – there can be video gold in an off-the-cuff last comment.
Choose the right setting for video interviews
It might sound obvious, but one of our biggest video interview tips is all about location, location, location.
Getting the setting of your video right will not only help put your interviewee at ease and enhance their body language, but it can also greatly impact the overall look and feel of the final filmed result.
You’re looking for more than just an empty space to conduct the interview. If you can, choose a location that is relevant to your business, such as an office space or production facility.
Make sure there’s enough natural light and that any background noise can be minimised or eliminated to avoid an external microphone picking it up during the interview.
If you’re filming a remote interview video, ensure the lighting is suitable and, if company branding isn’t being used, that a neutral background has been put in place.
As always when it comes to remote interviews, the technical aspects can make a relatively simple process more tricky. Use reliable video conferencing software, make sure there’s a robust internet connection and be ready to tackle any technical difficulties.
Make the interviewee comfortable
We’ve already touched on the fact that not every person put in front of a camera is a natural. So it’s imperative they feel comfortable and relaxed before, during and after the interview, particularly if they’re a solo speaker.
If their body language appears stiff and they grapple with even the most open-ended questions, or they struggle to maintain eye contact, even in the hands of a good interviewer, it could negatively impact the interview footage. In the worst possible case, it could be unusable.
Do everything you can to put them at ease for any video interviews. That can include making sure they’ve had a chance to read through and prepare answers ahead of time, engaging them in small talk off camera or providing drinks and snacks before and after filming.
If possible, show them short clips of what has been filmed, so they can see how they look on screen.
Get the right equipment
Once your talking head is relaxed, happy and ready to answer questions for the interview, it’s time for the technology to take over.
We know modern smartphones have lots of whistles and bells for video production but if you want a great corporate interview video, it’s worth using the right equipment.
Our team are expert handlers of the latest cameras, microphones and lighting equipment, getting the best out of all your video interviews.
Great pictures, sharp close-ups and perfect sound quality for every video interview, every time.
Edit and structure your talking head interview
What happens after filming has stopped on your corporate interview is as important as all the pre-production work you put in. Now begins the video editing process.
What starts as raw video and a jumble of interview questions will start to come into complete focus. It will be structured and edited to become the video story you originally set out to tell before a frame was captured.
This stage also allows you to get creative: filming and editing in additional material such as shots of your office or products, breaking up the interview clips and adding visual interest.
It’s important to structure your video in a way that is engaging and easy for your audience to follow.
Don’t forget captions and graphics
Let’s not forget that means all your audience, including deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals, foreign nationals and people who prefer to watch videos muted, no matter how good the sound quality.
Captions and graphics don’t just add context and visual interest to your corporate video. According to 3playmedia, 91% of videos with captions are watched until the end, and secured 40% more views than uncaptioned content.
As well as making your interview more inclusive, captions and graphics can also highlight key points in answers to particular interview questions, or underscore statistics and other data.
Promote your video interviews
Once your talking head interviews are complete, it’s time to get them to your target audience.
If an executive has given a great video interview about a recent project, post it to the appropriate landing page of your firm’s website where all your employees can enjoy it.
For client testimonial videos, social media channels should be your first port of call. A corporate interview with a positive message about your company culture, services or products can be turned into several Facebook videos.
You can also edit the length of a great interview response to the same question so it appeals to other platforms, such as TikTok or YouTube.
If you want to tap an as-yet unexplored audience segment, you could even consider using paid advertising instead of organic reach.
Track your interview videos’ success
Once the video interview has been published to whichever platforms you require, it’s important to assess how well it’s fared. The last of our video interview tips is: measure the results.
The specific metrics you track will depend on what your corporate interview video was created to do in the first place, but overall views, engagement, and conversions will help you determine how effective your interview videos were.
The great thing is, all the data generated by a three-minute chat with an executive in the same room, or five-minute remote interview can be used to shape future corporate videos.
Call us for a professional result
At Bouche Media, we have years of experience creating, filming and editing corporate video content, including interviews, for a wide range of companies. In 2022, we were rated in the UK’s top 50 production companies.
In the hands of our production team, every aspect of your interview videos will be taken care of, from help in creating the initial brief to ensuring your distribution is on the money.
Whether you’re capturing the delight of a satisfied customer, shining a light on a particular department, or want to demonstrate thought leadership, we can help create video interviews that will get you noticed.
As a creative, independent video production company, we bring a freshness and flexibility to the table, always aiming to come up with something a little bit different.
Contact us
If you’re ready to breathe new life into your corporate video interviews or want to chat about other ways we can work together, we’re all ears.
Email us at info@bouchemedia.com, call +44 (0) 203 6373597 or fill in this contact form and we’ll get back to you straight away.