Employee-Driven Content Marketing Tool-Altru

Content marketing to consumers has become the go-to strategy for companies competing for client acquisition over the last couple of years. The more engaging and viral the content, the greater the ability for a company to garner the attention of prospective clients. I’ve written about how value content marketing as a recruiting strategy will change our industry over the next few years in previous posts. In a recent meeting with Altru, I learned about their employee driven content marketing tool and thought I’d share my thoughts.

According to Cisco, video will consume 84% of internet traffic by the end of this year. LinkedIn research shows candidates trust employee content nearly 3 times more than the company content. These statistics explain why I’ve noticed a lot more employee content being used by larger firms to market to consumers and candidates alike. I know I am drawn to the authenticity employees bring to corporate video messages so I would imagine they have the same effect on perspective candidates. One of the major obstacles I’ve encountered is how to mobilize our workforce but still maintain a bit of control on the content and branding of the videos being released. When Altru reached out about their product, I was intrigued to see how their solution could address this and many more obstacles in employee driven content marketing.

Altru’s Solution

The firm describes itself as an enterprise video solution to source video content from employees to use in both internal and external content marketing strategies. It allows employees to answer question prompts from either their mobile phones or laptops with an incredibly easy to use platform. The videos can be edited with the solutions video editor to give the video the necessary polish companies would want prior to releasing to the public.

While most companies would be content with marketing videos to prospective candidates, Altru’s model is designed to provide a solution to meet the needs of candidates throughout their journey. Integrating employee driven content can only enhance the candidate experience and ensure a more personalized onboarding experience. Considering most of us are still doing virtual onboarding during the pandemic, this adds a nice touch to a sometimes impersonal process.

The firm’s solution addresses one of the key obstacles in employee driven content marketing: the time and cost to create great content. Professional videos are great but the amount of time and money it takes to produce a product can be extensive. In my experience, selecting a vendor is a laborious process and that doesn’t even include getting them through procurement once they’ve been selected. Any minor changes to the content or titling can increase the cost of the project quickly. It’s a very tedious and sometimes overwhelming process.

Altru’s solution is decreases the amount of time and money required to produce content, while also giving company’s the ability to drive the message and editing. In my opinion, it’s a win/win strategy for a company to not only have more engaged and authentic content but also have the ability to edit videos like a pro.

The Platform

The product allows for video content to sit on your jobsite, a company content page or it can be used for email campaigns. Each video has a tag which allows companies to create personalized experiences for candidates who want to know more about various aspects of the company. Another impressive feature is the ability for their search tool to leverage closed captioning content to be searched in addition to the tag function. Combined, the two can allow companies to create a customized playlist based on a topic, job function or job family. The solution provides some impressive user driven functions to market your company’s culture and mission through the eyes of your employees.

Another feature I kind of fell in love with was an extension to email services that allows you to embed selected video content. Our team has a great CRM we use to market to our candidates but we have to create the templates and remember to use them. In the demo, the Altru team showed the easy plug and play function which would definitely make any recruiter’s job much easier. Of course, you can create templates to create a consistent experience but I do like the ability to do an ad hoc email to candidates I connect with.

The Employee Experience

I’ve helped companies leverage employee testimonials and always encountered one major obstacle: some people just do not know how to take selfie videos correctly. Either their phone was tilted too much, the quality was less than optimal or the content was not anywhere close to the message we were trying to craft. Oftentimes, out of hundreds of videos, we would only be able to use one or two that were slightly above average for our video campaign.

Altru allows firms to drive the desired messaging in a very easy and time-efficient platform. You can invite any number of employees to self-record a video by providing them question prompts and time limits for the video. What I really liked was the ability for administrators to set an overlay so employees knew where to place themselves in the video while they recorded it. If the employee moves out of frame, the app quickly alerts them to ensure the video quality is one that can be used according to the guidelines set by the administrator.

The employee receives a notification inviting them to share their thoughts using the app. The Altru team showed me just how easy it was for employees to record themselves and the ability of the app to provide prompts and reminders to ensure message alignment. Overall, the employee app seemed simple, efficient and the video was recorded and sent in under a minute. Very impressive with all of the ingredients to produce high-quality and engaging employee content.

The Editing Tool

Once the employee submits the video for review, administrators can use the editing tool to create an amazing video experience. The CEO touts the tool is a lightweight studio wtih high end editing abilities. I speak with people who are terrified of video content because of the complexity of the editing process but Altru’s tool eliminates the stress without sacrificing quality.

I was amazed at how quickly the tool provided closed captioning for the video. During the demo, the team showed me how easy the employee experience was and not even a minute later, the admin consul had the video ready to review with closed captioning provided. This helps the product be not only ADA compliant but also gives the video even more content to be indexed for enhanced searching by viewers. It allows the CC to be translated into over 100 languages making this a viable tool for global companies.

Before we get into the ease of editing, I have to mention Altru’s product leverage’s IBM Watson to measure sentiment and other key factors in the vide. This is an impressive addition companies can use to determine which videos would best perform and are most likely to be engaging for the intended audience. I cannot recall another video solution I’ve reviewed that adds this dimension to the process.

I have to confess that I love editing videos but sometimes get frustrated by limitations of my knowledge or the application’s ability to fulfil my vision. While reviewing the editing tool, I have to say it was one of the easiest platforms I’ve reviewed. You can add branded coloring to the CC or add a logo to the video or even create a montage of employee videos rather easily. For those who have a fear regarding the complexity of video editing, Altru’s platform lives up to the mantra that the ultimate form of sophistication is simplicity (Da Vinci).

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If you have not considered how to leverage content marketing as a recruiting strategy, I would encourage you to incorporate it into your 2021 plans. The idea of employee driven content marketing has been an obsession of mine for the last four years. Altru’s product definitely meets the requirements I would have for any tool I chose to enhance employee content and has a wide range of uses for both employee engagement as well as candidate marketing. If you’re interested in learning more about the product, definitely reach out to Alykhan Rehmatullah to schedule a demo. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the time invested. Here’s a great video they provided me after our demo.