Adding In-House Video - Mary Anderson

We talked to Creative Director Mary Anderson about adding in-house video capabilities to your organization.

Mary Anderson is one of those "Unicorns" we talk about in creative spaces. She can shoot, edit, strategize AND partner with all the various siloed departments. We've been consulting with our clients to help add to their in-house video capabilities for years. Often, we have the good fortune of partnering with our clients' in-house video professionals to augment their abilities or help build capacity. We first had the pleasure of working with Mary at The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) but she's held similar roles, working either alone or leading a team, at other large organizations. Mary currently serves as Creative Director for bswift, and we were thrilled when she said "yes" to being on camera with us.

Think about what need you are trying to solve and how that fits with your current team:

“Everyone loves video. Everyone loves multimedia, but it's not always needed. So think about how you're going to use it. Why you're going to use it is really important.” You also need to think where this position would fit with your current communications or tech team. Determine if the role fills a gap or if there are staff members already handling video-related tasks.

Understand the limitations of one staffer:

“If you're only hiring one person, they are one person. You probably don't have a one-person marketing department. Think about that same thing in terms of a new multimedia hire.” No matter how talented that person is, they can’t do more than one task at a time, e.g. interviewing, operating a camera, and doing sound and lighting.

Grow your social media presence:

Be sure to leverage social media effectively, as there are no financial barriers to entry. “If you're really looking for moving content on social media, whether that be short form, video, GIFs, things like that, I think it makes a ton of sense to bring someone in house,” because hiring an outside production company can have that barrier to entry.

Try a hybrid approach:

You should know that you can take a hybrid approach: “You can hire an outside shooter and have your in-house person edit something. It's a great way to reduce costs and also gives them more flexibility.” Though be aware of how this affects your budget.

Match the salary to the experience (this one is very important!):

“If you're hiring someone like first of all, no one can do everything. You can't be an expert in everything. Someone might have a niche. But if you're hiring someone who is talented at a bunch of fields, their salary has to match that.” To Mary, that's something that the market hasn't yet recognized.” Realize that if a person is responsible for your entire multimedia strategy, that’s not an entry level position, and their salary has to reflect that.