We recently connected with Anthony Istrico and have shared our conversation below.

Anthony, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

As a storyteller who appreciates human connection, authenticity, and honesty, I see too many companies scripting a message that they feel represents their brand instead of connecting with their audience beyond a written mission statement. For me, a successful piece of content is something that does not answer all my questions; it inspires curiosity and a way to discover what we value most as consumers.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve always wanted to create; as a kid, I drew, painted, immersed myself in building sets and Legos – basically any method or outlet where I could connect with the visual. However, due to my less-than-stellar coloring as a child, I quickly discovered that I could use technology as a tool to bring my vision to life. Through photography and videography, I was able to capture and create without worrying about staying within the lines.

At the core of my firm, I have over a dozen creatives who take our clients from script to screen. We are, in large part, focused on visual storytelling through video profiles; animation; photography; graphic design; and branding. During the pandemic, our business shifted, and it supported our digital side by supporting our clients as they, too, pivoted their companies online. Since the Spring of 2020, we’ve been hosting and broadcasting online events to podcasts on behalf of our clients. And soon, Istrico Productions is going to turn the tables on itself and start to get back into what we loved to do, which is invite more creatives into our community through gear reviews, technology testimonials and even hearing from our clients themselves on how they work with us to achieve measurable results.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Up until March 2020, the majority of our work was in-person filming for our video work and in-person event coverage: from capturing stories and covering events to working on-site with our clients to bring their messages to a relevant audience we were boots on the ground. In a blink, that side of our business was obliterated. Like so many other businesses, our whole world was turned upside down in just a few moments. I did everything I could, to keep our people on payroll, and I’m proud to say that we not only retained our entire staff, but we grew.

I did a lot of reflection, thinking about what exactly we do that works, and what we could change. I recognized some hard truths, such as the fact that we had just spent thousands and thousands of dollars on new camera equipment, but I could not let that hold us back. So, Zoom became our medium of choice. I reached out to every client we had, current past, and even some future clients, and asked them how we could help. It turns out, we were in the same boat as our clients, and we created a community based on trust. It was at that point that we decided to go all-in on virtual storytelling, whether that was capturing content, remotely, using any existing and new technology available to us, or hosting and directing virtual events and discussions. At the end of the day, a good story is a good story and we needed to get those messages to our clients’ audience.

We morphed from a team of videographers and editors to a team of technical directors and remote content creators. The workday became a blur, and confirming which time zone we would be hosting and recording became the new norm. Our clients span the globe, and now more than ever we had to be on 24/7. We tried, we failed, we succeeded, but most of all we evolved. To this day, we have a large portion of our business that still involves virtual events and virtual content creation. It was a shift, but one that stuck.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We create a great deal of online content and measurable social media campaigns for our clients, so I feel that we have a good grasp on what’s most effective based on audience. We remain curious and we’re always learning – but don’t ask me about Thread quite yet. To that point, at the rate in which social media evolves when this interview runs, maintaining one’s “expert status” is no easy task. My advice for those starting to build their social media presence is twofold: Be ready for your plans to change and set manageable expectations for each platform.

Our social media policy focuses on the big four platforms:

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, in that order. Understanding and setting expectations for what you hope to get from each platform is critical. For us, LinkedIn is a great place to position ourselves as thought leaders. We’re not advertising, we’re sharing our knowledge, and when a client or potential client sees that instance, it just offers relevance to the professional community. When a potential client searches for some insight on how to script an engaging piece, they can find our posts discussing just that. Regarding Instagram and Facebook, we treat these channels similarly and we remind our clients, who we really do see as our friends, what we do. We don’t use those platforms to necessarily expand our audience, but we use them to remind our current audience and engage with them suggesting, for example, “Hey, we’ve got this new technology, we can now film in space…” or “Check out this new illustrator we hired, and we can now make a 5D model of your widget.” We find Twitter is a great place to share quick tips within the industry, and most of our engagement on Twitter is with other production companies. We engage and respond to product reviews or feature reviews on the various technologies we use. I’m also reminded that Twitter is a destination to verify local resources around the world if I need to tap an extra photographer or editor. Importantly, post with consistency and authenticity to grow your audience. Your brand’s personality can take on different personae across channels.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.istrico.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/istrico/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IstricoProductions
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/istrico-productions
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/istrico
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChL0zZPGiM66rvBnv-q0kRg

Image Credits
imagery by Istrico Productions