How to Humanize Your Mission to Drive Video Engagement

Video marketing content in many niches struggles to create a human connection with viewers — and consequently fails to generate engagement. But humanizing your mission offers a way forward.

Instead of sticking to the theory or dry educational content, you need to make sure your mission is embodied by someone your audience can relate to. Someone who gives a voice and a face to your brand.

Sounds abstract? Here’s everything you need to know — and a case study to illustrate it.

• Niches that are heavy in educational and informational content often struggle to cultivate an emotional connection with viewers. This lowers engagement and conversion rates.
• Humanizing your mission by giving a face to your brand and meeting your audience on an authentic level provides a solution.
• Tone is critical. Move away from lecture-style formats in favor of more direct and human contact.
• Your choice of format matters. Short-form content especially is suited for more informal video types that highlight the people who embody your mission.

Humanizing your organization’s mission

Depending on your niche, it can be extremely difficult for businesses, entrepreneurs and nonprofits to cultivate an emotional connection with your audience. However, such a connection is critical when it comes to driving clicks and conversions.

There are plenty of niches that aren’t focused on pure entertainment or retail customers. Business services. Specialized charities. These organizations often focus on creating a range of long-form content options, much of it educational or informational. Tutorials. Webinars. Fact-checking deep-dives.

It can often feel that no-face channels will be more relatable because they’re not committing to one person. However, psychologically, we recognize human faces and human emotions, so having a “brand ambassador” to do the work is often more effective because people can relate to someone.

But these often fail to build rapport with your audience and in generating the type of engagement that’s needed to convert a follower into a subscriber, donor or customer.

That’s where humanizing your mission comes in.

Instead of relying only on fact-heavy, objective, educational content, you must give a face to your mission. It highlights the humans working towards a shared goal, their passion and the lives they touch.

Often, team members are great fits for appearing in these videos — for representing the energy of your organization and connecting with your audience on a deeper level. Authenticity is key.

Choosing the right format

Resolving to humanize your mission is one thing. Actually planning your next moves is another. One big choice you’ll have to make is what content formats to leverage.

Do you want to add a twist to one of your existing types of content? Such as the introduction of a visible narrator in your videos, who will represent your team going forward?

Or do you want to launch a new type of your video? If so, should you aim for long- or short-form content?

Both have their advantages and drawbacks. Long-form content gives you more space to build rapport with your viewers. Plus, if you already have an existing viewer base who are used to seeing horizontal videos on your channel, sticking to this format may be easier on them. But long-form videos also demand more from viewers in terms of attention and time investment.

Short-form content, in contrast, offers prime opportunities for connecting with viewers in a fast and authentic way. Rather than relying on polished content delivery (within limits), they pick up the pace and get straight to what matters — in this case, the people who stand behind your mission. The downside? You have to work with maximum efficiency to build an emotional connection in a very limited timeframe.

A human POV done right — MIB Agents

Sounds complex? Let’s take a look at a practical example.

At Tasty Edits, a video editing and YouTube channel management service, we work with hundreds of creators from dozens of niches to help them fine-tune their strategy. One of them is MIB Agents, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting children with osteosarcoma by connecting parents, caregivers and experts to drive research and help advance a cure for bone cancer.

On its YouTube channel, MIB Agents publishes in-depth educational content on topics from using extracellular vesicle biomarkers to presenting the results of a phase II trial of new treatment options. All vital content for researchers and family members of affected children. But these videos, many of them longer than an hour, were not highly effective at driving conversions among potential donors.

That’s where BONUS came in. This new series of short-form videos — “The Big Osteosarcoma News Update Short” — allows for a direct, conversational connection with the community, featuring team members who share urgent wins. The strategy trades the formal lectures for a casual, high-energy newsroom feel that has successfully boosted channel engagement.

The result? Analytics show a 43% increase in views and a massive 142% surge in likes compared to the previous 90-day period.

While the channel’s academic content continues to engage researchers and clinicians, its more humanized content helps it reach a broader audience. The bottom line? Diversifying your content portfolio to introduce videos that humanize your mission and highlight the people behind it is well worth the time and effort. It builds rapport with your viewers, drives engagement, increases conversion rates and, ultimately, furthers that mission.