Good products are important to build a brand. But do you know what makes your customers connect with you? Your story. You must present your story authentically and relatable — and behind-the-scenes (BTS) content is an excellent way to start humanizing your brand.
Candid moments from team meetings, production processes, or fun office traditions make your brand feel more human, not just a faceless business. They foster trust, credibility, and transparency.
The bottom line is that BTS content humanizes your brand, strengthening the connections you share with the audience.
However, there is a fine line between being relatable and oversharing. The key is knowing what to reveal through behind-the-scenes and what to keep private.
In today’s article, we show you (with examples) how to maintain that boundary and still share BTS that:
- humanizes your brand;
- strengthens brand loyalty;
- turns audiences into long-term advocates.
9 Ways of Humanizing Your Brand with Behind-The-Scenes Content
There are several ways that you can connect with your audience in a more personal way. Let’s see more closely how you can market BTS content to humanize your brand.
1. Show the People Behind the Brand
People build a business, and featuring them in BTS has two benefits:
- It brings a direct human element to your brand marketing, showing your customers the real people who shape their brand experience.
- You share the limelight with your team which rewards their hard work with something more than paychecks.
So, is it sufficient to shoot a couple of videos in your warehouse and share them on social media? No. You need a plan that’s strategic enough to drive real results but maintains authenticity in your BTS.
Introduce team members, their roles, and what they bring to the company, like Everything Kitchens does. The kitchenware brand understands that cooking is a deeply personal process — and they match it with regular BTS content on their YouTube to strengthen relationships with the audience. The brand shares recipes, office and warehouse tours, and employee stories.
Everything Kitchens shared this company headquarters tour on YouTube. They feature team members who talk about their role in the company. They keep the narrative very customer-centric, with employees addressing the audience directly. For example, Brett, their customer service manager, says, “My team and I devote personal attention to every customer so that you can get to cooking.” The video also shares tidbits about each employee, like “Proud Dog Mom” or “Swam with Sharks.”
These fun and relatable BTS videos highlight the employee’s hard work while still focusing on customer experiences. Such attention to detail delights the audience, and the team’s authentic narration style humanizes the brand.
Another example comes from the clothing company Birddogs that specializes in athleisure and casual wear, and in their marketing – pretty casual content and over-the-top humor. Their approach to the usual “meet our team” email is in the same style. This style is recommended if it fits your brand language and you are sure your audience would appreciate it. By clicking on CTAs in the email, the reader is directed to their website, to get to know the company’s staff in more (accurate) detail.
A little tip: Have some fun little office traditions? Post photos of such team-bonding moments and tag the participants. Celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries by writing a post on LinkedIn or other social media platforms.
2. Give Personal Recommendations From Your Team
Another way to add a little personal touch to your marketing and show who the people behind your brand are is to share some relevant product recommendations from your team.
A great example of this comes from Methodical Coffee – a specialty coffee roaster dedicated to sourcing high-quality beans. In their holiday newsletter, they feature personal recommendations from their team about their favorite coffees. This includes pictures of the employees, appetizing descriptions of the products, and comments on why and how they personally prefer to enjoy them.
This creates a more personal connection with your brand for clients. It feels more authentic than a generic advertisement, allowing people to see that the team behind their favorite products is genuinely passionate about what they do and loves the products they offer.
3. Share the Story of How Your Business Started
Naturally, one of the most relatable ways to tell stories about your company is by illustrating the hardships and efforts that lay behind its beginnings. In marketing, you can share heartfelt narratives with your followers about how your business idea came to life, the challenges you faced in creating it, and the principles that helped you overcome those obstacles.
This makes your brand feel more human to people, showing that behind every success story there can be harder days, which can be overcome by passion and clear goals. As a bonus, you can maybe even inspire some people, too.
4. Capture Candid Moments, Not just Curated Content
One crucial element that makes BTS work is its authenticity. So, your behind-the-scenes content mustn’t look overly scripted. Just guide your team about the content’s theme and let them be their real self.
You can also capture a regular office day to show off your office culture with employees enjoying their work. Post content showing chill lunch breaks, inside jokes, and birthday celebrations. Share unfiltered snippets highlighting your brand’s personality via social media and email marketing.
For example, Southern Realty Group shared the behind-the-scenes of their annual photoshoot. The video shows realtors and other team members engaging with each other and having loads of fun. You also see them struggling to pose for photos, just like any regular person does. It makes them look approachable to the audience — a key element in business, especially if you are a realtor.
However, don’t just share ‘rainbows and butterflies’ content. Create real and unscripted moments of struggles and wins. After all, you are trying to humanize your brand — and mistakes make us human. Show how your team solves unforeseen challenges and how they work together to make the customer experiences better.
5. Take your Audience Inside the Process
According to a report, customers don’t have enough information about how products are sourced or made. This creates a trust issue.
For example, you have a skincare brand with a commitment to sustainability. But how would the audience know it’s not just a marketing gimmick?
Show them how you make your products. For longer videos, feature your hero ingredients and why you use them. If you are shooting content in a manufacturing facility, use time-lapse to make it more engaging. However, navigating these strategies can come with digital transformation challenges that brands must address.
Taking your audience along your processes shows your commitment to transparency. When they see you using quality materials in clean manufacturing units, it cultivates trust. Sharing these insights helps promote your content by sparking conversations and encouraging audiences to engage with and share your brand story.
Kimberly-Clark Corporation did it excellently with their “How It’s Made” videos. For example, the above video shows the company making their very popular Scott® Brand Toilet Paper.
They also posted a manufacturing BTS video describing its commitment to environmental sustainability. They don’t depend on vague sentences to prove it. Instead, they show numbers.
The videos are short but explain every step of the process through the voiceovers. The company’s BTS content approach turned a seemingly boring topic like manufacturing into a fun, informational video.
Another good example of showing the process behind a product is Chipotle’s newsletter, literally with the subject line “Behind the Foil: Real Food, Real Care”.
There, they explain the deeper purpose of their brand in choosing their ingredients and preparing their food, and there they focus specifically on one very important component: the avocado. They explain in detail how these fruits get from the farm to the tables of their restaurants, along with a video introducing the process (starring a farmer dedicated to the process). As a nice little bonus, they share their guacamole recipe with their readers.
6. Humanizing Your Brand With Sharing Values, Not Just Visuals
According to Statista, 54% of U.S. consumers are more loyal to brands that take a stance on social issues. Why? Because modern customers care about a company’s values. It proves that you are not in it just for the profits.
Don’t simply talk about your values. Emphasize your brand messaging and ethics through BTS content. You must capture how you, your team, and your daily operations embody those values.
You can share a video where your HR talks about the company’s DEI commitments and what you have done to fulfill them. If you have any social initiatives, film those moments.
Maybe your employees volunteer in a soup kitchen or your office’s local community garden. You can show BTS of how they prepare and do their part for the community.
Abbvie, a pharmaceutical R&D company, posts BTS on LinkedIn. Their Associate HR Director Ashley Gammella posted the above photos on LinkedIn. It shows the HR team packing 50 toiletry kits to donate to a shelter.
This BTS demonstrates that the company cares about collective wellness. The audience believes that Abbvie puts the same care in their research to develop better medicine for the community.
Behind-the-scenes content should also show how your values make the employee’s life easier. Your employees can share how your company culture contributes to their growth and wellness through posts or videos. The content should reflect their passion for your brand’s mission.
Here is a pro tip: Start a weekly segment in your email newsletter or social media campaigns that feature an employee’s journey and how they relate to what your company stands for. That way, you can humanize your brand consistently and keep it on top of the audience’s mind.
7. Engage With Real-Time, Interactive Content
Our interactions with fellow humans build bonds and create long-term relationships. Think about it. You won’t really be good friends with somebody who is just in their own bubble, right?
Our goal here is to humanize your brand with BTS. Making them interactive opens a two-way street for the audience to engage with your brand. It gives them a feeling of belonging and builds emotional connections, making your content more impactful.
You can hold weekly or monthly live sessions with your team members where they answer questions in real-time. Feature the leadership in some of these sessions for a more humble and approachable brand image.
Founders can host product demo sessions live. Once the session is over, post it on social media, too. That way, the ones who missed the session can engage with the content and ask their questions in the comments. Ask your team to reply to the comments according to your brand personality to boost interactions.
For example, Team-GPT founders host live demo sessions and publish them on YouTube later. Their videos act as that tech-savvy friend teaching you how to use a new tool. The narration style is simple, authentic, and insight-driven, proving the company’s expertise in their niche. This builds trust and emotional connection.
You can also post “day in the life” takeovers with your employees. Show the day-to-day duties of a particular employee, how they navigate challenges, and what makes their job rewarding.
8. Balance Authenticity With Professionalism
Your BTS should be warm and authentic but mustn’t overshare or be too personal. Trying to go overboard with the relatability factor may do the opposite, making your efforts look tacky or gimmicky.
Set guidelines on what’s too informal for your brand. This helps your content team maintain a balanced approach while filming and editing BTS.
For example, you can show bloopers from a shoot but follow it up with the end result to showcase professionalism. Realize that there is a difference between lighthearted workplace moments and unabashed banters. You want to connect with the audience, not offend them.
For example, Workday posts BTS content regularly, but they always maintain warmth with a dash of on-brand professionalism. You can see the employees collaborating, brainstorming, and even laughing with each other. But their demeanor and the videos aren’t too informal either.
Another good example is from Grow by Ginko – a magazine that tells the unfolding story of synthetic biology. Their newsletter, with the subject line “A behind-the-scenes look at The Equity Issue 🎨”, was wholly dedicated to introducing the work that went into the design of the 140-page publication.
This type of newsletter takes readers on an interesting journey behind the scenes of the creation of products and publications, and also shows customers how dedicated the team is to their creations.
9. Know Where to Draw the Line
Being authentic doesn’t mean you have to share everything. There must be a strict line between what’s relatable and what’s just too much.
You should avoid sharing sensitive internal information like prototype details, client information, or financial details. The BTS videos should not show personal conflicts or negativity. You want it to be raw but inspiring.
Make sure your BTS content aligns with your brand voice. For example, if you are a luxury brand with a sleek personality, your behind-the-scenes shouldn’t be humorous. And, of course, always make sure to align with GDPR and other important privacy rules in (email) marketing.
Conclusion: Using Behind-The-Scenes Content is Great for Humanizing Your Brand
Behind the scenes show your business’s human side, proving that you go through life’s ups and downs, just like your audience. But that approach has to follow some rules.
Feature your team members and share interesting facts about them to build an emotional connection with the audience. Publish manufacturing videos and value-driven BTS content. Make them interactive to foster a sense of belonging.
Finally, maintain a strict line between relatability and oversharing in your BTS.