This summer while in Paris I heard a piece of advice that immediately struck a chord. It was a little nugget of newsroom strategy gold. Joackim Le Goff, Eurosport’s digital content manager, was explaining how he encourages his digital team to think about video storytelling.

He said, “Don’t just make a video, make a format”.

(well, the whole quote was, “When you’re using Wochit, don’t just make a video, make a format”. But this is a tactic that anyone can put into action right away, whether or not you use the Wochit video creation platform — we just make it easier and smarter)

The point is this, if you are going to put any creativity into crafting a video, then you should be thinking tactically: what kind of stories can I use this same approach for? How can I turn this one-off video into a reusable format?

Missing the leap from TV to digital

Of course, there is an analogue form of this from TV: the nightly news show. An established format where the same general recipe is followed day in and day out.

But somehow in the digital world of short-form video, publishers decided that every video needed a bespoke treatment, each video needed to be built from scratch — even though they no longer had the TV ad dollars to cover that kind of production.

Over the past few months I have seen more and more of the 600+ publishers and brands using Wochit really embrace this approach of recurring formats to better manage their video output.

Time Shift

Focusing on reusable formats is all about efficiency, which lets video storytellers manage their time differently, and better.

Creators can spend a lot less time to create a new version of one of their formats, freeing them up to spend more time on the creative crafting of interesting new formats and special projects.

It means the potential to move away from scrambling to keep up with the news cycle, and towards video creation that actually sets the brand apart and helps build loyalty with audiences.

As Xavier Bigot explained to me over email, “The formatted approach means a lot to us. It is the next step towards success with video on social media. We know how to achieve great success in terms of views and virality, but the formatted approach lets us communicate more as a brand. Now it’s clearly us at L’Express, not just another video from ‘a brand you don’t recognise or remember, but you snack on their content’.”

When to format

Creating a format simply for the sake of having a format is like saying that your video strategy is to make more video: that is not strategic.

Think about this and how it can be deployed along with your editorial calendar. Plan ahead, find an event that your brand should be covering, and create a format, or formats, that make your brand shine.

Another approach is to use formats along with the idea of appointment viewing. Create a habit with your audience, like doing a ‘today’s topic in one minute’ video that goes out with your morning email newsletter, or a weekly roundup on Fridays posted to IGTV of your editors reading their favourite article comments that week.

Three formats for inspiration

Here are three examples of interesting formats, you will notice they are all from French media outlets — I purposely collected foreign language examples to de-emphasise the individual stories and really highlight the recurring formats. Also, France happens to be a hotbed of creativity in video right now.

1) The Video Dictionary from France TV

This takes a little bit of prep but the result is a collection of videos that can be re-released every year with only minor updates. And the format can be reused for any major sporting event with some interesting history.

As Rémi Pietton, France TV sport’s digital editor-in-chief, puts it, “the templated format guarantees a uniformity of style, so producing a video for the dictionary series was very fast to do (no waste of time)”.

2) Acrostic — The News in Letters from L’Express

A very creative take on the classic explainer, the anagram brings audiences beyond the headlines one letter at a time. It is the kind of format audiences can build a habit around, something they can look for to understand the big news items of the moment. It is no coincidence that L’Express uses the videos to attract new readers to their paid content offer.

3) One Day, One Event from RFI

A smart, simple, and highly reusable format that connects audiences of today with major events from the past. Easy to plan ahead for as well!

For more inspiration on video strategies from media and marketing leaders around the world, visit wochit.com/blog. And get in touch if you want to find out more about using Wochit at your organisation: garrett.goodman@wochit.com

It’s not just about staying the course, it’s about navigating an ever-changing landscape of platforms, formats and storytelling devices while deepening audience engagement, broadening reach, attracting new talent, and ensuring existing talent stays up to speed. No small feat.

And while there is no established playbook for driving these changes, one thing is certain: newsroom culture plays a huge role in successful transformation.

In the course of my work at Wochit, I get the opportunity to pick the brains of many wise media mavericks from across Europe. So, I set out to gather some recipes, some real, actionable tactics on how to create the kind of environment that encourages experimentation and innovation.

Recipe #1: Finding your inner startup

Last month Freek Staps, a leader of digital transitions from NRC Media in the Netherlands, laid out a series of transformation ideas collected during his time as a Harvard Nieman Lab Visiting Fellow.

For some context on Staps, two years ago he founded NRC Q, what he described as “a startup within the newsroom [launched] in order to help ease the transition to a digital-focused company”. Staps is now one of two Managing Editors for Digital at NRC, tasked with spreading the digital transformation across the group. Staps and I have known each other across a few startups now, most recently from NRC Q’s partnership with Wochit, where they use us to stay nimble with their creation of digital video.

Here are three very concrete pieces of advice from Staps on how to drive the adoption of new thinking, new tools, and new workflows in the newsroom. Visit the the Nieman Lab site for full report, complete with case studies.

1. Build a team with the mandate to innovate. The team should be no smaller than five and no larger than fifteen, and should have clear permission to operate free from the constraints of the newsroom or other tight controls. A gag order to exclude the entire newsroom from weighing in might help. To prevent endless discussions, set a clear deadline (e.g., three months) for the project to be completed.
2. Change your day-to-day operations. In order to let the startup succeed, and your organization transform more easily, implement changes gradually but surely. Don’t waver. The head of the startup should have weekly meetings with representatives from departments outside of the newsroom.
3. As soon as the startup is ready to go live, find a place in the newsroom. Visibility is key and change is the new norm. In order to have a lively conversation about journalism with reporters, designers and developers outside the startup, be present in the newsroom. Don’t hunker down and only talk to other members of your team.

Recipe #2: Making the mission personal

On a recent trip to Amsterdam, I had the pleasure of meeting another Dutchman with immense insights into the art of introducing change and progress to the newsroom. Wouter Bax from the Dutch national broadcaster has overseen digital transformation not just for print, but across broadcast, radio, and online; as the deputy chief of NOS 24, he is responsible for the central news provider of NOS.nl, Teletekst and the Dutch public radio stations 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6.

One of Bax’s proudest accomplishments was getting all NOS’s radio journalists to take photos to publish along with their stories online. As he said, “It’s no big tech thing, it’s just very effective. It added enormous value.”

I had Bax walk me through his recipe for this transformation, there’s no doubt that this approach can be applied to a variety of initiatives.

1. Start with an official announcement of the new initiative to all those involved. “But that was just the start of the process, we had to convince them one by one to work for us, in a positive way”, added Bax.
2. Appeal to reporters personally. As Bax put it, “People don’t just work for an organisation, but also for other people. You have to be a little charming, sometimes they do it just for you because they think you’re a nice person.” As part of this tactic Bax established himself as a friendly, helpful presence in the newsroom, making the rounds with a smile and building a good personal relationship with his reporters.
3. Provide them outstanding support. When asking radio reporters to do something new, something extra like send in photos from the field, the experience that the reporters had was paramount. Bax made sure that his team in the newsroom got those photos published online as soon as possible. Bax explained, “if you don’t, they lose interest and it takes a lot of effort to get them back.”
4. Show them the results. Bax advised appealing to reporters’ vanity, by giving them positive feedback and showing them the figures of how the audience responded. If you’re going to ask them to do something new, show them why it’s worth it.
5. Lastly, take their limited time into account. It was important that reporters still felt like they had agency over their own work, and to get the recognition of their workload from the higher ups. Bax explained, “we kept our phone calls short and effective and after asking to do us this favor we left them in peace to do their radio things.”

A shift in mindset

At its core, the challenge in newsroom transformation is not about the tech: it’s not just a question of getting reporters to use Tweetdeck, or introducing some new video creation technology. Rather, the underlying challenge is convincing reporters to change their routines, and in doing so, to shift how they think about doing their job of uncovering, synthesizing, and relating information.

Both Staps and Bax suggest that this requires leaders to provide the newsroom with support, structure, and the freedom to experiment. I would add that it requires a certain amount of education as well.

First, reporters need a strong understanding of the current digital landscape, and how stories will best reach today’s media consumers. Then, they will have an appropriate framework for appreciating how new workflows / platforms / initiatives can help them do their job better.

However, there’s also a much larger tectonic shift happening on the Facebook platform, one that’s not just impacting a tiny pilot group of elite publishers like the Instant experiment: Facebook is pushing video content like crazy.

There are two things going on here.

1) Facebook is favouring video uploaded through its native player

A Business Insider article claims the social network’s algorithm prioritises videos to make up 30% of the News Feed. And Facebook itself has shared that users are seeing 3.6 times more video compared with one year ago.

2) Publishers and brands are responding by uploading record amounts of video to Facebook, and getting record engagement.

NewsWhip on Twitter

Facebook native videos typically see high average share rates, according to NewsWhip data: http://bit.ly/1c7wZMz pic.twitter.com/LCOAKakmA0

Liam Corcoran at NewsWhip, a social analytics firm, told me that “average share rates on Facebook native videos are far higher than those of other types of Facebook posts, such as Links and Images.”

Corcoran took the example of BBC News’ Facebook page, where “average share rates per video were over four times higher than those for external links”.

But it’s not just Facebook

Facebook isn’t the only force impacting publishers’ video strategies: newer platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine are already the focus of much experimentation around new video formats. And of course there’s the continued growth in views and uploads on YouTube, which is still a vital platform for most media.

The one constant across all these platforms is the growing consumption of video on mobile — Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said 75% of the network’s 4 billion daily video views come from mobile devices.

In need of a better way

Therefore, the current state of video for publishers is this:

The distribution channels and consumption habits are evolving rapidly, and a new approach to video is required. One that caters to a mobile, social audience, and involves a healthy amount of experimentation around new formats and more efficient workflows.

I spoke to some global leaders in the space, to find out what they consider as the new approach to video. Here’s a selection of key quotes:

Jigar Mehta (@jigarmehta), Engagement Lead at AJ + (USA)

When we produce video for Facebook, we have to assume that the audience is going to be watching on their mobile phones with no sound, so we have to optimize video to tell the story with no sound.

On Facebook, we know that we are competing for time on a platform where content FOMO [fear of missing out] is rampant, so we strive to make our videos very engaging from the start, and not waste any time getting straight into the stories we tell.

We are always thinking about how we can get as much information across and tell the stories we need to tell in the shortest amount of time possible, while still being engaging.

Sven Christian (@sven_christian), Head of Video at Spiegel Online (Germany)

[Disclosure, Spiegel Online is a user of the wochit video creation platform]

Our emphasis is on scenes, sound bites, and atmospheres. We show, don’t tell!

So we use as little comment as possible, instead utilising bullet points to answer the basic questions: who does what where when and try to explain why.

Video has the power to transport information quicker and closer to the viewer than text. But text can explain things more deeply. Fortunately I work with fantastic writers: we can show, they can tell.

Matt Cooke (@mattcooke_uk), Head of News Lab at Google (UK)

Short form video lends itself to mobile devices, where people are either on the go or they’re looking for a short burst of knowledge or entertainment, They’re watched by people throughout the day whereas traditionally longer form content has always been viewed on a television and in the evenings. For creators this sets a challenge, how can they capture the attention of people during their busy day?

One thing I’ve personally noticed as a consumer is the depth of content around supposedly niche subjects and issues — there is now a place to find videos and stories about the things you care about.

Stefan Ploechinger (@ploechinger), Head of Digital at Suddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)

[Disclosure, Suddeutsche Zeitung is a user of the wochit video creation platform]

We don’t believe in the TV approach any more — web video works differently.

Our approach is to create video that is crisper, more playful, rougher, and with all sorts of visualisations.

What comes now?

Clearly there are some common trends here, with the emphasis on short form video that is highly engaging and full of striking visuals.

As publishers move away from the traditional TV approach to video, many have experimented with creative ways to inform and entertain through video. This will be the topic of my upcoming post: “Top publishers’ favorite formats for short form video.”

Until then, you can dive deeper into how four publishers are using Facebook for video in this earlier post for TheMediaBriefing from March 2015.