As the coronavirus pandemic continues, those hurried crisis communication plans you built four months ago have begun to wear out, haven’t they? Now, we’re settling in to a phase of learning to live as safely as possible. While being able to create content is not an essential activity, most companies and organizations know that staying connected to audiences now will bring benefits later. As a result, we’re seeing more requests for help in creating content safely.
The question we threw out to the Almanac team was simple: How can we help clients continue telling stories and connecting with audiences by creating original content while following good health guidelines? The answer is our approach to safe photo & video shoots, which you’ll see below. And keep reading to get to our list of other safe (& cool!) content development ideas you can use today. Questions? Contact your account manager or reach out to me at angie@brandalmanac.com.
Custom photo / video shoots
Yes, we can! With safety as our main objective, we sat down with our creative director, media producer and account team team to talk shoots these days. Based on CDC recommendations, we worked through a list of health protocols to put in place and still capture the rich, emotional, specific content that connects with people and moves them. Our approach:
- One or two Almanacers per shoot (media producer and strategist or creative director for video / media producer only for photography)
- Up to three (3) subjects at a shoot
- Face masks required
- Outdoor shoots only as of now (but we’re lucky, St. Louis has some gorgeous outdoor backdrops: Check out our case studies on work for Forest Park Forever and Tower Grove Park to see some of the natural beauty!)
- Keep 6ft of distance among all, unless family members or people already exposed to each other
- Shoots last up to three (3) hours
- All attendees fill out a form recording their temps and answers to self-screening questions
- Hand-washing breaks every hour
- No food or drink at shoots
We’re happy to report that so far, safe video shoots have gone wonderfully well. Shoutout to Hayden, Sarita and Justice BTS at the Epworth video shoot!
Other safe (& cool!) ideas to create content:
However, if an in-person shoot is still out of the question for you or your audiences, there is no shortage of ways to create content digitally. Research a few of the options below and feel free to share your own ideas!
- Add animation or motion graphics to already developed content
- Invest in 3D graphics and simulations for when you need to create content that helps people understand a place or event
- Do Zoom interviews and / or video chats with Almanac helping edit, create original music, coach and consult on technology
- Mix your media, augmenting existing content with crowd-sourced information like interviews, snippets of video that subjects capture themselves, or testimonials.
- Run a completely crowd-sourced campaign by asking your target audience to create their own video testimonial or send a message through your platforms. Almanac can help with editing and creating music and graphics.
- Produce a podcast (check out ours here. We learned a ton about strategy, planning, interviewing and all the podcast things while creating Season 1, and we’re happy to share, just ask us!)
- Facilitate a true webinar, using all of your platform’s features to give attendees a personal and professional experience
- Similarly, take webinars to the next level by producing an online conference, or couch conference
Finally, if any of these examples has sparked an idea, or if you’ve got some killer notions of your own, reach out and let’s chat!