How can you ‘Gather Voices’ to make a compelling story for your organization? CEO Michael Hoffman shares how : EASTWEST Public Relations

Michael Hoffman is the CEO of tech startup Gather Voices, which is a software that makes it easy to create or collect videos from anyone anywhere in the world on any device and to easily manipulate that media, edit it, add branding, add a call to action, and be able to publish it. There’s two reasons why that’s interesting. One is that video is the kind of content that’s dominating online, and video gets 1,200% more shares than text or images. Traditionally, video has been expensive and slow, and so especially for organizations without large budgets and the ability to have large in-house production agencies, video is important but it hasn’t been solved, so that’s where Gather Voices comes in.

According to Michael, another factor that has fueled their growth that is very relevant to PR professionals is that today, things need to be real and authentic. It can’t be made up. When Michael started a marketing agency 15 years ago, at that time, production quality was the most important thing and so was cleverness. Today, that’s not it. It’s about real, authentic stories. Companies are now figuring out that when they ask their community of customers, members, or fans to tell their own stories, those people come up with things they could have never imagined, never invented, and that’s the best material. That’s the material that people want. At Gather Voices, they’re unlocking that opportunity to collect those stories with video to create a powerful new stream that supports what PR professionals really want to do.

How Gather Voices works

With time limits and very clear instructions, the content you get back is much more focused. It’s that piece that you want. You can even assemble different pieces together into a bigger piece, but giving that user some real narrow clarity helps a lot. That request for video can also include a video introduction. Imagine that Mike’s asking you for a video, and when you click on something, you see him saying, “Hi, thanks for coming to make a video. Here’s what we want you to talk about.” What they found is that that video request actually creates more engagement, because the psychological thing that’s going on is, “Oh, that’s a video. That doesn’t seem so hard. I can do that,” and that makes sense. So, the software bottles that request up into a link that can be shared via email, social media, text message, or it can be embedded directly into a website, form, or existing workflow. For example, if somebody’s purchasing something, that Thank You page can have one of those requests for video built-in, so that you’re collecting content in a passive way all the time and finding those gems of stories. This allows you to get real-time customer testimonials with video, which is golden.

You can also ask questions that aren’t necessarily just self-serving questions. Something PR professionals might know better than marketers is that you need a hook that is relevant and interesting. It can’t simply tell them to buy your products. It has to be a story. It’s about being able to ask people about the first time that they experienced something or things that ladder into your company and your product, but aren’t necessarily that direct self-serving testimonial which, of course, there’s a place for. This software can do that, but Gather Voices is thinking in a much broader way about creating a story environment that supports a brand.

Why Gather Voices is unique

With everyone focused on Zoom and audio-video conferencing these days, wh at sets Gather Voices apart is that it’s not just one aspect of communications. Zoom is a synchronous medium, which means the participants all have to be on it at the same time, which is great if everyone’s timezones match up, but it’s also not something people want to spend all day on. It’s also not possible to communice on Zoom with a group of thousands of customers or members. There’s a large world of asynchronous content that is recorded in advance and used later on on websites and social media, which Gather Voices helps produce. Most video content is asynchronous, so companies need this ability to collect video that they’re going to use possibly in a virtual event, because no one wants to run an event where they have to worry about everybody’s internet, not just their own. Collecting content in advance also enables people to be more engaged in the event. One of the things that they’ve discovered at Gather Voices is that when you ask people to tell their stories and you include their stories in your content, people pay attention differently. They feel much more like co-creators than they do if they’re being talked at. That, in turn, creates a deeper sense of connection and community, which is a very powerful thing for brands.

Let Gather Voices guide you on the path to making great videos

Under digital storification, which is part of the five-stage SPEAK|pr methodology, the value and the power of Gather Voices is truly evident. If you would like to learn more about Gather Voices, you can visit their website, or you can even send an email to Michael himself at michael@gathervoices.co.

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Categorized as General PR

Originally published at https://eastwestpr.com on August 27, 2020.