We all love a good review. Knowing that you and your business delivered service outstandingly to a happy customer is always a great feeling. It's also key to get these reviews shared, to advertise to your future clients to show how good you really are! But we know of an alternate way of showing your feedback to potential clients, one that is very unique and opportune for many companies. We're talking about video testimonials! So many businesses are turning to video testimonials for their marketing campaigns. As video storytellers ourselves, we've put together a guide on why this genius idea is a perfect fit for any business looking to gain some new attention from their feedback. We've been producing our own testimonials this week, so we thought we'd give you a helping hand with yours. A personal touch It may sound obvious, but a video testimonial really is a personal experience for any viewer. Actually having the reviewer sat, talking to a camera and giving an honest opinion feels so much more natural and real. It's almost as if the reviewer is talking to your new viewers one on one. Anyone can write a testimonial, but capturing it on video just gives it that extra special touch. Videos trigger emotions, and if your viewer senses these feelings in the testimonial are real and authentic, they're more than likely to take a keen interest and trust in what is being said. Keep things authentic Authenticity is crucial for video testimonials, so [...]

If you haven't heard of Instagram, you must be living under a rock. Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms out there, an app that lets its users post images and videos only to their profile. A visual based app, one a lot different to that of Twitter and Facebook. The thing with this platform is how popular it has become in the last couple of years. More and more company's are moving to use this app for their marketing, including us. We've put a lot more focus on Instagram in the past few weeks, and from that we've picked up a few tips and ideas that we want to share with you. If you want to get the most out of as many social media platforms as you can and don't have Instagram, now is your opportunity! Set a business profile First things first, set up a business profile. It is easy to do, set up your account via settings - it's simple and as quick as a flash. What you'll get out of this setting is shiny new contact buttons at the top of your profile for those who are interested in your content to give you a call/e-mail if they so wish. It's also recommended that you post your website link in your main bio, as Instagram will only let you have one hyperlink in your profile as a whole, including posts. Another great plus about doing this is you'll be able to use [...]

Health and safety is incredibly important in all industries, particularly in manufacturing, engineering, construction and energy. Large sites, heavy plant and equipment and technical processes, create the need for effective safety communications. To ensure staff and contractors can operate safely. The importance of health and safety has never been more integral in looking after your employees and making sure they maintain a strong and chipper working life. Of course, this can always be regarded as the 'boring' stuff by your staff. You may want to change your health and safety courses or lectures into something a bit more exciting and digestible for your audience, and that's why we're here to tell you that video may be your answer. Watching a video sure beats reading through pages and pages of your safety guidelines. The best thing about video is you can turn those pages into a script that can be translated in a more invigorating way on screen. If you don't believe us, here's an example of one of our health & safety videos for Engie. With that, here's how you can engage your staff with a video production on health and safety. Expansive Formats The best thing about video is that the platform is very expansive, meaning you can delve into different formats of video. As with the example above, animation is a great option for these types of videos. It makes the video a whole lot more colourful and exciting, and with animation the possibilities are endless. That [...]

We all love a good review. There is nothing better than getting amazing feedback from those you have gone out of your way for, to deliver the best possible experience or product. We recently received a couple of glowing reviews from some of our clients via Google Reviews and LinkedIn, and the feeling of another's happiness due to our passion to tell their story felt great. ''Lotty and the Shot Blast team filmed a large number of our products over a week-long project. They were easy to work with and very accommodating of our needs, both in terms of capturing the right footage and editing specifically to our requirements.'' - George Brazil "Fantastic work by Lotty and the team at shotblast! Very easy and quick to work with. Amazing!'' - Josh Hoyle We're very appreciative of these reviews, and that's why we always go one step further with them. Reviews are incredibly important to your business and rightly so. But, you could be doing so much more with them than just receiving them. That's why we want to give you a guide in how you can get the most out of your reviews, because there is plenty you can do with them! 1. Sharing your reviews This may seem pretty simple and obvious, but there are many companies out there who receive their reviews and just hope they get noticed. We say you should embrace your reviews! Social Media is there to share these comments and thoughts so your [...]

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube. These social media platforms are incredibly useful for promoting your business in the digital age of marketing. They're incredibly helpful too, but it's good to think outside the box sometimes and look at platforms that you may not be aware of - that just might just get you a little more attention. 5. Pinterest Okay, so this is a pretty well known site, but there's not a lot of businesses that utilise Pinterest for what it's worth. A bit of a mix between Facebook and Instagram, this site is perfect if you're in the creative industry. What makes Pinterest different to other social media sites is it's organic capabilities. The organic reach on a Pinterest post is determined by what kinds of keywords you have used in your post, if they align with the users search, and how many there are. Effectively, this allows you to plan out a strategy in capturing your audience's attention without spending a dime! 4. Snapchat Again, if you haven't heard of this one you must be living under a rock, but what you may not know is how effective Snapchat can be when advertising your business. If you don't know what Snapchat is, it's an app that lets users send a photo or video either directly to another user or to their Snapchat Story, which can be seen by anyone depending on who you allow to see it. If your marketing campaign caters towards the younger demographic, [...]

Facebook videos are becoming an ever growing powerful marketing tool for any business to add into their marketing strategies. They allow for instant feedback, engagement and most importantly action to be taken driving traffic to your product or service! Facebook videos are cost effective, versatile and profitable when used correctly. There are more than one billion people active on Facebook, with an average of 8 billion videos viewed daily, that's a lot of people that could be watching your marketing content. 1. Upload your videos directly to Facebook YouTube is an amazing hosting platform for videos, but if you're looking at capturing a Facebook audience, post them straight on there! Facebook native videos perform up to 4 times better than all other video formats according to Quintly's study. 2. Keep them short and snappy - and yes we mean as short as possible Audiences attention spans are short at the best of times, whilst on social media you need to strike whilst the iron is hot. Capture their attention in the shortest time possible to get them to stick around on your autoplay video. Unless the viewer is already interested and actively engaging with your brand, you'll only have the time a finger scroll to make a potential prospect notice you, go get them! 3. Make sure you can get them with or without sound This goes back to the last point, unless people are actively already super engaged with your brand, it's likely they're only going to come across your [...]

We're all about communication. We recently researched into communication barriers that could be causing your business problems. You can read this, here. From our experience in getting to the core of every business we collaborate with, we get to see a lot of varying company cultures. One culture that's shone out for us is Christeyns. Managing Director, Nick Garthwaite spoke to us about how he started to work on building this. From his experience, we've outlined 3 takeaway's that can help your business. Don't run your business based on fear 100% attendance bonuses, pay caps for not hitting quotas, commission only pay incentives, the list could go on. Don't punish your staff, value them! Old fashioned management styles kill a positive culture. Combine the money you'd put into bonuses and increase employees wages. Or alternatively offer them simple things like available free fruit. These gestures cost nothing in the big scheme of business, but will incentivise your staff more than any scare tactic and help them to feel as though the company that they spend most of their week in, truly values them. A valued employee adds value to business. Change is driven from the top If change is needed in the business, it needs to trickle down from management. It's the only way to make the changes you want happen. If management don't stick to the adaptations to your business then why would the rest of your employees? Lead by example and inspire the change you want to [...]

As companies, we invest so much time in communication outwards, to our customers or potential customers. But, actually the most valuable conversations we should be having are within the organisation, to the heart and soul of your company, to the employees that work within. Company culture resinates in everything you broadcast. If your employees feel valued, truly great things start to happen. Behind every great business, is a great company culture.  People often mistake that flash offices, high salaries and bonus benefits are what creates a positive work environment; all of these things will of course help boost employee moral but without the most important (and free) offering of respect and appreciation of each and every person, no flashy gift will solve the problems within. At its worst, this can result in an unhappy work environment, high turnover in staff meaning high costs of training to the business and lower efficiency, resulting in an all round costly repetitive lesson. So if the answer is free why do so many businesses completely miss the mark? We'll outline 5 different communication barriers and how to spot, and overcome them. The sticking point The infamous point in internal communications where information is filtered down through management. But the problem? People forget to pass down the message, they forget important factors, they forget to relay the why and just impose changes. The list goes on! There are so many issues when it comes to simply passing down messages through a funnel based on hierarchy [...]