Spill The Ink How AEC firms can use employee phone videos to fuel connection and engagement
Architecture, engineering and construction firms are increasingly integrating video content into their marketing strategies. Thanks to smartphones, AEC firms don't need expensive equipment or large production crews to create high-quality videos. Field professionals can now use their phones to capture on-site perspectives, resulting in authentic and engaging behind-the-scenes content.
Jessica Whitlock, a studio leader at RS&H, was one of the trailblazers in her firm's video initiative. She shares her experience launching the initiative in this episode of "Spill the Ink." Michelle Calcote King interviews her about the role of employee-generated videos in supporting RS&H's brand and marketing efforts. They discuss how to get started, offer tips for shooting and editing great videos, and explore how to get buy-in from employees and clients. They also touch on must-have equipment and ways marketers can enhance collaboration with field professionals.
Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn-
Who is Jessica Whitlock and what is RS&H
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Why RS&H started creating videos for social media
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How they earned buy-in and rallied support from employees and clients to shoot on-site videos
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How to get busy field professionals to participate and contribute content
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How to train employees to shoot high-quality videos on-site
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What equipment and apps are needed to shoot and produce videos
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How employee videos contribute to building RS&H's company culture and brand
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Tips for enhancing collaboration between marketing and field professionals
Jessica Whitlock, NCIDQ, CHID, IIDA, is a Healthcare Studio Leader at RS&H with over 11 years of experience in healthcare interior design, architecture and project management. She is a seasoned design professional with a bachelor's degree in interior design. Jessica is NCIDQ Certified and holds a Florida Registration in Interior Design. She is also AAHID certified and a member of the International Interior Design Association, Women in Healthcare and Association of Medical Facility Professionals. Jessica's experience ranges from acute care, outpatient care, behavioral healthcare, women's specialty care and oncology care.
Resources mentioned in this episode-
Check out RS&H
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Connect with Jessica Whitlock on LinkedIn
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Check out the videos mentioned in the episode: "A Day in the Life" and "Live On-Site with RS&H"
This episode is brought to you by Reputation Ink.
Founded by Michelle Calcote King, Reputation Ink is a public relations and content marketing agency that serves professional services firms of all shapes and sizes across the United States, including corporate law firms and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms.
Reputation Ink understands how sophisticated corporate buyers find and select professional services firms. For more than a decade, they have helped firms grow through thought leadership-fueled strategies, including public relations, content marketing, video marketing, social media, podcasting, marketing strategy services and more.
To learn more visit www.rep-ink.com or email them at info@rep-ink.com today.
Transcript[00:00:00] Jessica Whitlock: We are a society that's looking for quick information and digesting it quickly. So how do we get them to stop scrolling? And it's really those 'Wow' moments in a very quick and digestive way, but also authentic. I really believe that the next chapter of marketing is showing things in a very authentic way.
[00:00:20]: Welcome to "Spill the Ink," a podcast by Reputation Ink, where we feature experts in growth and brand visibility for law firms and architecture, engineering and construction firms. Now, let's get started with the show.
[00:00:37] Michelle Calcote King: Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle Calcote King. I'm your host, and I'm the principal and president of Reputation Ink. We're a public relations and content marketing agency for professional services firms, including architecture, engineering and construction firms. To learn more, go to rep-ink.com.
One of the great and unique things about the architecture, engineering and construction industry is that there are plenty of marketing visuals to work with. You know, there's schematics, construction sites, finished buildings, you name it. And with today's advanced technology in-the-field employees are one of your best resources for capturing pictures and videos that help us marketers tell the story that we need to tell. And really all your employees need is the smartphone in their pockets.
Today, we're talking to Jessica Whitlock. She's the Orlando studio leader at RS&H, and she's here to share a little bit about how her team is using employee videos to generate great content for the firm, and we might pick her brain on a few other topics, too. Thanks for being here today.
[00:01:36] Jessica Whitlock: Thank you. I'm excited.
[00:01:38] Michelle Calcote King: Yeah. Well, let's start with, just tell me a little bit about your role at RS&H and your career.
[00:01:43] Jessica Whitlock: Yeah, absolutely. So, I am the Orlando Studio Leader for RS&H, and RS&H, we are an architecture, engineering and consulting firm. We're nationwide with headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. We've been in business--
[00:01:54] Michelle Calcote King: that's where I'm based.
[00:01:55] Jessica Whitlock: Yeah, perfect. Yes. So, and we've been in business for over 80 years. So we really have that history and that trust with our clients. My background is actually in interior design, and then as I got to RS&H, it started to kind of flourish and go into different markets, which I'm super excited about. And then our Orlando office actually we focus most of our attention on healthcare. So my attention and for a majority of my career has always been healthcare, specifically for architecture.
[00:02:23] Michelle Calcote King: That's great. Yeah. Let's talk about getting employees engaged, and using their own footage for those marketing initiatives. Like I saw you've done a lot of, I think you call it "Live Onsite with RS&H." Just tell me a little bit about what you're doing and how it's been working so far.
[00:02:39] Jessica Whitlock: We've started this journey really recently and it sort of became a very organic way of how we kind of fell into it. So I was actually on-site for one of our projects that we were finishing up, and any architect or designer knows that as you go into the end of your project, you're pretty much on-site for multiple days in a row for about two weeks or more. And I was on-site during that time, and I was taking, of course, all my calls and marketing meetings from the site.
And one marketing meeting I had, I was on-site and I shared my camera and so they could see, you know, all the commotion and all of this stuff going on in the background, and they were just super intrigued. "Where are you? What's going on?" And so I actually picked up my laptop and just started to walk them around the project. In that moment was when we had this like, "Aha." This moment of, "Hmm. Well, we are this interested in it. I bet everyone else would be, too." And we started to talk about how we really don't see that kind of dynamic type of content from other architecture firms and how we could really use this to set ourselves apart.
You know, RS&H we've also started kind of at the same time, some other initiatives around a very similar content and one is called "Mentor Minute," which is another content series that another one of our associates is creating. Just really quick videos on mentorship within the architecture and engineering industry to younger associates coming up.
[00:04:00] Michelle Calcote King: Very cool.
[00:04:01] Jessica Whitlock: Yeah, and then RS&H also rolled out recently "A Day in the Life" where they follow their different associates around in different markets. You could be in buildings or you can be in transportation. And it's a really quick video. They let them know this is basically the day in the life of an engineer or an architect.
So, we've recently started to see really good positive feedback from this type of, kind of, content movement on social media.
[00:04:23] Michelle Calcote King: Yeah, it really is. Well, one, it's amazing. I just returned from a bucket list vacation in Egypt last week.
[00:04:29] Jessica Whitlock: Oh my gosh! That's amazing!
[00:04:31] Michelle Calcote King: It was amazing. You know, talk about like amazing visuals and everything, but it really is amazing to go on these vacations now and just use your phone, you know? There's no need for another camera. Because I'm old enough to remember, you know, having a bigger camera, and taking film to get printed and that kind of thing.
[00:04:48] Jessica Whitlock: And just hoping it turned out good. You're like, "I hope I got that picture I wanted."
[00:04:51] Michelle Calcote King: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And not being able to check it, you know, right in the field.
So what was your experience getting buy-in? Were there any concerns from either the marketing team or leadership?
[00:05:02] Jessica Whitlock: So I think when it comes to buy-in, my experience has been based on relationships. The stronger your relationships are, the easier the buy-in is going to be, and that's for external and internal purposes. So I have a really strong relationship with our marketing team. Our marketing team is amazing. They don't silo themselves. They make sure they work with all of our different teams. And then when it comes to the client, we have really strong relationships with our clients. So getting buy in from them is also a really simple task. And this may not be the case for every single project or every single client, especially some of those projects that, you know, the information they don't want it to be public until later on. So there's only very specific projects we can, you know, make sure we do it with; make sure we're not breaking any type of NDAs or anything like that. But it's really more based on relationships than anything.
[00:05:48] Michelle Calcote King: Got it. Yeah, that's smart. Well, and also having someone in your role who respects marketing, seems to really understand marketing and work well with them. That's critical to something like that.
[00:06:00] Jessica Whitlock: And typically the clients, you know, they're just as excited as we are. And so they're excited, they're usually like, "Yeah, let's do it!" And they want to push it through as well. So, we tend to have pretty good support in that aspect because we're all in the, you know, sharing the same boat and we all have the same outcome and value around it.
[00:06:20] Michelle Calcote King: That's what I always tell clients. I always say, "You'd be surprised at, you know, until you ask, you don't know." We have some clients that really want to protect that client relationship at all costs, which I understand. And so they might be a little fearful of asking, you know, "Can we shoot video? Can we do this?" My advice is you'd really be surprised how much they, too, want to share the story. And obviously there is a time and place when confidentiality is key. It might be some proprietary technology you don't want to show that kind of thing, but yeah, it's having that conversation.
Do you give your team or have you done any kind of training to kind of make sure they're capturing the right thing? How do you kind of make sure you're getting what you want and they're delivering the kind of content that you want?
[00:07:03] Jessica Whitlock: That's an interesting question. When we first started this, you know, I'm not savvy when it comes to making different videos and things like that. But when marketing asked me to kind of start this campaign and this endeavor, I kind of went in full headfirst into the deep end because I was really behind it.
I started to work with them to learn how to quickly make these videos, which apps are going to be the most beneficial to me, which is going to be the best ones for editing. And they really helped me with that so that I could create these, honestly, on the spot, push them through my channels, and then we share them together through both my personal channels on LinkedIn, as well as the company channels. So they kind of worked with me on how we share that content, and they've also showed me a lot of cool tips and tricks I wouldn't have known before. And so it was kind of a really collaborative effort and learning to put those things together that you know, I'll admit I'm now personally using in my own personal different Instagram posts and contents and things like that.
[00:08:01] Michelle Calcote King: That's awesome. Can you share some of those apps or tips that have been particularly helpful?
[00:08:07] Jessica Whitlock: My first content I pushed through after we had this 'Aha' moment, I was very nervous about it. And so I was like, "I don't know. I haven't really done this before." So I created a video and I just sent it to marketing like, "You guys just make it look good." And when I got it back it looked amazing and so they were able to kind of like point out the different things of how they cut it and what to look for. The biggest thing I've learned is making sure your video really shouldn't be over a minute and a half. If it's over a minute and a half, you just lost your audience. And so that was something I learned through them. Also making sure that the music you set behind it and your captions and things are going to be something that as people are scrolling, because we're a scrolling generation, what's going to make them stop, even if it's just for a few seconds and pay attention to your content? They were able to kind of give me tips around that. I was able to download like a film app where it actually allows me to take the video, put it into that app, make all my cuts, apply the music, and make it a little bit more customizable instead of just using, you know, reel templates that you would see on Instagram or Facebook. Actually being able to create it the exact way you want it to be able to show the content in the way that you want people to perceive it.
[00:09:24] Michelle Calcote King: That's great. And do you use any tech other than your phone? Are you thinking about lighting or lapel mics, that kind of thing?
[00:09:33] Jessica Whitlock: That's like a good thought. We actually only use our phones and we do that on purpose. We've thought about what would we do if we took it to the next level? And then I kind of was like, "You know, I really don't want to." Not because it's more work or it's more equipment, but it starts to make it kind of less authentic.
[00:09:49] Michelle Calcote King: Right, a little too polished.
[00:09:50] Jessica Whitlock: It's a little too polished. And if we think about what our different generations are really craving these days, they are really craving essence of connection, but in a very authentic way. And so if you go on to different architectural firm social medias, you'll start to see a lot of it's static and a lot of it is either post-project professional polished photography or it's polished renderings. But what about that in between? What about the process? What about the construction? The thing that everyone wants to see and be a part of? How does it get built? What does that look like? And so being able to go in with just a phone and really show the authentic environment of that process is, I think, really unique and it's what people are really wanting to see is something different. It's quick and it's dynamic.
[00:10:45] Michelle Calcote King: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So how are you expanding this? So you talked about the mentor videos. Are there other folks like you in similar roles that you're now going, "Hey, you know, if you're going to be at this site, here's what we're doing." How are you kind of rolling that out?
[00:11:02] Jessica Whitlock: Our marketing team and myself and some of the other people who started to take on this initiative, even though they're not labeled 'marketing,' it's all about how do you encourage the associates to stop and take content? And I think a lot of it is streamlining the process.
How do we streamline this process? So if we want our associates to really get involved and taking a lot of this, how do we as a company provide them with templates and resources, as well as instructions to make it easier on them?
I'm the type of person who loves to do it myself and I find it fascinating, but not everyone's like that. So our company is actually taking a deeper look into creating a program and creating resources on our own to provide to our associates so that when they're on-site, you know, here's a quick little template. If you want to take photos or a video, just put it in this app or this system that we've already pre-created for you with all the branding needed and you can just spit it out. Or if you get content, just send it to marketing and they put it together for you and they push it out.
And so it's giving them different types of resources, so it makes their lives easier because what's going to happen is if you try to encourage associates to do those things, it takes time. You know, it takes time putting content together. So how do we streamline that process? And that's what we're working on now. And we're really excited about it.
[00:12:22] Michelle Calcote King: Do you find that, and this is kind of a loaded question because I know how I've found it with clients, that it kind of it empowers people-- It makes them feel good about themselves to kind of be the person to have kind of visibility on social media with regards to their job or have their job share the content that they're creating? Especially younger people who are used to this and have grown up with this kind of life where social media is kind of central to everything. Do you find that it's kind of empowering and almost like an HR tool?
[00:12:53] Jessica Whitlock: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because everyone likes when they post on Instagram and they tag a restaurant and then they see that restaurant, you know, share it in stories, your heart just bursts. And it doesn't matter if two people looked at it or if a million people looked at it. It was the fact that they took notice and they really liked how you were promoting them and they were supporting you. It's not only very uplifting and encouraging to our entire associate team, but it's also, you know, how do you encourage them to want to be a part of the face of the brand?
[00:13:30] Michelle Calcote King: Right.
[00:13:30] Jessica Whitlock: You know? They want to be a part of that vision. They want to be a part of that brand. And it also shows to our clients our entire breadth of our team. And they get to see all these different faces that maybe they don't get to see every single day, but they get to see it through social media. It really kind of opens the door of like, "Wow their team is really expansive. I had no idea." Or, "I didn't know that person was, you know, an aerospace engineer." And get to see a little bit more about our company that maybe they're only seeing a little bit of part of, but now they get to see, you know, everything that we can do and what we're capable of.
[00:14:05] Michelle Calcote King: I love that. That's really fantastic.
This is a podcast on marketing for AEC industry. Since you do collaborate so well with your marketing team, how have you been able to build that great relationship so maybe if there's a marketer out there that's trying to build better relationships with studio leaders like yourself, what's been the kind of key to you working effectively with them?
[00:14:27] Jessica Whitlock: I would 100-percent say, do not work in a silo. We are a connected community and we seek that out. And so when marketers are, especially in the architecture and design industry, when you're trying to put together content, your designers and architects will know exactly what the clients are wanting to see and needing to see from a branding perspective as well as project styles. Everyone tends to have their style when they put out their content showing brand and different types of projects and your designers and your architects will be the ones that be able to tell you, "Okay, we know what they're looking for. This is the way that it needs to be." And working together and collaboratively from an early stage — that's always key, from an early stage — really creates a strong partnership and so when you put out these different contents, you're able to ensure that what you're putting out is exactly what your audience is looking for.
[00:15:25] Michelle Calcote King: Fantastic advice.
Would love to hear just as a final note before we go, and I know you're not a marketer, but since you are involved, what's the future for architecture, engineering firms, you know, building brand visibility, engaging with audiences? What trends do you see happening?
[00:15:42] Jessica Whitlock: I do think that architecture marketing has always relied on relationships and those 'Wow' moments to really capture and convey the expertise that we're really trying to get out there, and that's not going away. It's not going to go away. However, these tactics evolve into these quick, digestible, authentic moments. It's kind of like guerrilla marketing. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with guerrilla marketing. It started in the early millennium and it really grew in popularity as social media started to gain in popularity. And it's these really interactive and innovative and unconventional marketing tactics to grab the attention of our audience in a very quick way. Again, going back to the comment I made about the scrolling, we are a society that's looking for quick information and digesting it quickly. So, how do we get them to stop scrolling? And it's really those 'Wow' moments in a very quick and digestive way, but also authentic. I really believe that the next chapter of marketing is showing things in a very authentic way. If you're on Instagram, you'll see, you know, these stories where it's like the Instagram moment, but what actually really happened?
[00:16:52] Michelle Calcote King: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:53] Jessica Whitlock: What's grabbing you is not the Instagram moment. What's grabbing you is what really happened. Because that's the authentic lens is pulling back the curtain and showing, "This is reality." And people want that connection to that. They're done with the polished, you know, kind of overexposed content. They want to have real authentic connections with people.
[00:17:16] Michelle Calcote King: I've seen a lot of writing about that, especially with AI and deepfakes and filters on pictures that we are kind of coming a little full circle to people going, "But what's really real?" That's a really fantastic point. So, yeah.
Well, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this. We'll probably put up a few links on the podcast page to some of the videos you've done, because they are really great examples of how to do this well. But if anybody wants to reach out to you and talk to you a little bit more about this, what would be the best way for them to do that?
[00:17:47] Jessica Whitlock: I would say right through my email, which is jessica.whitlock@rsandh.com.
[00:17:53] Michelle Calcote King: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
[00:17:54] Jessica Whitlock: Thank you.
[00:17:57]: Thanks for listening to "Spill the Ink," a podcast by Reputation Ink. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click 'Subscribe' to get future episodes.