An intuitive video recorder is your solution to improved team productivity and employee communication. It’s also an antidote to Zoom fatigue — working as an effective, time-saving way to walk teammates through project briefs, updates, and feedback without calling meeting after meeting.
A video screen recording also adds a human touch to sales outreach and customer support, reminding viewers of the people behind the tools and services you use.
But that’s not all. There are tons of use cases and benefits of using video recorder apps — we’ll talk about them in detail. We’ve also got video recorder software recommendations to help you get started.
But first, here’s the 101 on video recorder software.
What is a video recorder?
A screen video recorder is software that records whatever’s going on your desktop or mobile screen. You can choose to record a specific window or the entire screen with or without recording yourself and your voice.
It’s a handy tool for quickly sharing your thoughts with your team or customers without having to write (and edit) long paragraphs explaining something.
You also don’t have to worry about taking accurate screenshots and marking them to show specific things. Instead, simply walk viewers through the steps with a screen recording and your audio explaining things.
The team at Sol Marketing loves using video recorder software. Tom McAllister, their Digital Marketing Strategist shares:
“I’m able to use audio and video to easily explain complex topics now, whereas I previously would take multiple screenshots and then spend time editing them to highlight the areas of focus.”
When would I need to use a video recorder?
From enabling async communication to helping educate users about your products, there are tons of ways to use video recorder apps. With the help of AI and one-take video creation, anyone can generate AI video scripts, record with a teleprompter, and edit footage in the same way you edit a document.
Let’s take you through some of the most prominent use cases:
1. Comms with your workforce
Instead of calling a meeting every now and then, executives can simply create a screen recorded video to connect with employees, communicate asynchronously, share announcements, project updates, and/or new policies — just about anything, really.
Not only does this help save everyone’s time but it also means all executive communication is recorded and saved to a folder that teams can access anytime.
2. Product walkthroughs
Video recording software makes it super easy to create product tutorials for everyone on the team.
You can use these videos to:
- Onboard and educate new customers
- Announce how to use a new feature
- Explain how to do something specific with your tool
- Teach your internal team how to use your tools so they can use it too (or create content around it)
All you’ll have to do is to log into your product, record your screen using a video recorder such as Vimeo Record, and explain the steps you’re taking on the screen. This will create a video sharing the exact steps you took to use a feature in your SaaS tool, for instance.
(The best part? Our free video recorder lets you record two hours of video. Meaning: you can batch-create multiple product education videos in one sitting. Once you’re done, edit the long video into bite-sized videos explaining one feature each.)
At Vimeo, we drink our own champagne by using Vimeo Record to create product educational videos. For example, we’ll pop into Vimeo Create, use our Vimeo Record extension, and walk viewers through steps to, for instance, make a social media video in Vimeo Create. We then save the video and share, so it’s accessible to all relevant team members.
3. Project management and collaboration
Another excellent reason to create screen recorded videos? Explain project goals and KPIs, walking your team through the project brief, collaborate asynchronously, train new team members through a complex workflow without adding an hour-long training sesh to the calendar.
The Shopify team, for example, uses a screen recorded video to explain their payment process to all new freelancers they onboard to their content team. Not only does this save them time but it also makes it easy for freelance writers to understand exactly how they’ll get paid — minimizing confusion and back and forth emails about the payment process.
Also exciting? Vimeo Record integrates with Github and JIRA. This way, the embedded player for the video you create will automatically be inserted into the issue description or comment, allowing others on that issue to watch your recording directly within the ticket. You’ll have tons of institutional knowledge at your fingertips — no need to rummage through old emails or Slack archives.
Pro tip: create a specific folder in your Vimeo Video Library for saving all evergreen screen recorded content, like videos on your workflows and processes in one, easily accessible place.
4. Video messaging
You can also use a screen recorder for efficient video messaging. For example, create a video recording to:
- Pitch a new feature/campaign idea to your team
- Walk team members through your project contribution
- Update your manager on what you’ve been working on
- Reimagine your weekly standup as a short 2-3 minute video
Vimeo Record adds to the ease of recording these videos with its Gmail integration, so you can record your video message from within your email — simply hit the red button, select your video’s destinations, and hit record.
Another example of a company using video messaging? Mailchimp.
“My team is using Vimeo Record to share product demos internally and to give our customers a preview of what’s launching soon. We love it! It adds a personal touch that you just can’t replicate with email or a chatroom message. I can definitely see video messaging becoming part of our everyday workflow at Mailchimp.”
Trevor Wolfe, Director of Product Marketing at Mailchimp
5. Video email for training and knowledge share
Video recorder apps also make educating marketing, customer support, product, and sales teams easy.
For example, you can create employee training videos explaining a concept or new feature update, for instance.
Learned a new tip or found a new resource or tool that can help your team? Great, share it in a video — explaining how the team can benefit from it and how to add it to their workflow.
The CMO & Co-founder of Trainual (and Vimeo Record user 🎉), Jonathan Ronzio shares they use screen recording for training and documentation for their marketing team. Ronzio explains, “Video is probably the most crucial part of process documentation for me because everything in the world of marketing and brand building is so visual, and so reliant on feeling communicated through a narrative.”
What’s more, you can prompt peer to peer knowledge sharing in this way too. Instead of having to explain the new tactic that worked for them to different colleagues at different times, encourage employees to create one video sharing their new results-driving tactic or finding and send it to all their peers.
6. Video sales pitches via recording
Lastly, train your sales team on using video to send out personalized sales pitches to prospects.
Reps can also use video messaging to nurture leads and educate them on how the solution they’re selling can help solve their specific problem.
In fact, the marketing team can use a video recorder to foster relationships. They might strike up a partnership, dream up guest post topics, or take a more personalized approach to link building.
Not to mention, video messaging is great for sales enablement as well as promoting sales and marketing team alignment. For example, each team shares who their ideal buyer is, how well MQLs are converting, or how an ABM campaign is performing.
Popular video recorder apps and software out there
When choosing a video recorder, go through its features to see how well the tool serves the purpose you want to use it for. You’ll also want to review its integrations and pricing. The more intuitive the video recorder software, the better for your entire team!
With that, here are two options to explore:
1. Vimeo Record
Vimeo Record is a free, easy-to-use Chrome extension for capturing your camera, full screen, or a specific window — letting you record videos as long as two hours.
Should you choose to record yourself along with the screen recording, you can easily reposition the camera preview from the default bottom left corner to any place you prefer in the video.
With one-take video creation, users can create videos using an AI generated script, a built-in teleprompter to speak on-cam, and trim footage instantly with text-based editing — all within the record studio.
Vimeo Record also offers multiple integrations such as with Gmail and GibHub. You can also create video content from your mobile devices.
Once you’ve recorded your video, easily resize, edit, even add captions to it using Vimeo Create. Lastly, organize all the video content in one place in different folders with Vimeo Central — setting different access permissions to them. The video library can also be managed with various access settings.
2. Zappy
Zappy by Zapier is another free video recorder software to try. It’s fast and lets you quickly create, annotate, and share screen recordings. Like Vimeo Record, it also integrates with a handful of tools such as Slack and the G-suite.
If you aren’t a Zapier user though, you’ll have to self-host your video content. Otherwise, you get free cloud hosting as paid Zapier customers.
Use screen recorded videos to communicate better today
In a nutshell, screen recordings are perfect for educating customers, training employees, and improving async team collaboration while cutting down on meetings. You can use these videos to personalize your sales outreach as well.
Use video messaging to boost team productivity Vimeo Record.
