Using Video to Transform How the City of Roseville Engages with Residents

Views of monthly online video series created using Adobe Creative Cloud have increased by 300%.

Image Source: City of Roseville.

The City of Roseville in Placer County, California, knows firsthand the power of dynamic video content. Through its monthly series, What’s Happening in Roseville, the city shares stories of the vibrant, thriving community with citizens. Like 81% of businesses worldwide, the City of Roseville uses video as a marketing and public engagement tool and has seen content engagement steadily increase, with more and more citizens tuning in for the latest city updates.

Video content helps the city keep pace with how its 135,000+ residents want to get information. While creating multiple variations of the same video is a mandate for organizations with a solid distribution strategy, adhering to the different video upload specifications for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram can be challenging for the city’s small communications team. So what did they do to make the process easier and faster?

A simpler, faster, and easier way to keep residents informed

To streamline video production and promotion processes with an eye on boosting citizen engagement, Elyjah Wilbur, video and multimedia technician for the City of Roseville, uses Adobe Premiere Pro. While previously using Apple Final Cut Pro for video editing, Elyjah spearheaded the move to Adobe video applications, including Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. He relies on the Adobe video workflow to support public affairs and communication projects for several departments, so he can quickly develop and distribute professional-quality videos for the city.

“The essential graphics and sound tools from Adobe Premiere Pro have drastically reduced the time I need to adjust audio, create new graphics, and more,” says Elyjah.

Adobe Creative Cloud also seamlessly integrates design and video tools so it’s easier for the City of Roseville’s communications team to organize assets, customize visual content, and produce videos. The team can work on an asset in Photoshop and open it in Premiere Pro, for example, then bring it back to Photoshop to make adjustments.

“Those shortcuts save a lot of time,” Elyjah says. “And when it comes to working in government, we’re always looking for time-savings, so those efficiencies are critical for us.”

Sparking creativity in government communications

The What’s Happening in Roseville video series was introduced in 2017 and serves as a companion piece to the city’s traditional online newsletter. Elyjah films in a vlog style, sprinkling in the latest news about the city and interesting community stories in a two- to three-minute videos. From traffic signal updates and upcoming events to announcements about the city’s new passport center, the series focuses on topics uniquely relevant to residents.

“Mobile platforms such as Adobe Premiere Rush, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Mobile, and Adobe Spark make it easy to use my mobile device to create short, easy-to-consume content,” he says. “This means we can experiment with different content styles and increase our output of video content for shorter stories.”

During the video-editing phase, Elyjah combines new content styles with the video-editing tools in Adobe Creative Cloud to speed up the editing process. “It’s allowed more creativity in editing,” he explains. “Rather than spending a lot of time fixating on technical details, we can try out ideas and deliver polished pieces faster.”

To further accelerate production, Elyjah takes advantage of the Auto Reframe tool in Premiere Pro. Powered by Adobe Sensei, Auto Reframe automates the video reformatting process for different aspect ratios such as length and width sizes. “With the Auto Reframe tool in Premiere Pro, I can quickly and easily create a greater variety of content that addresses the specific needs of various channels and platforms,” he says.

Engaging the community with video

Since moving to Adobe Creative Cloud for video editing, Roseville has increased total video views for its monthly series by 300%. Additionally, the city’s YouTube channel has seen an increase in views, with subscriptions doubling in the past two years.

“Our YouTube channel has seen an increase in views and subscriptions thanks to the What’s Happening in Roseville video series,” Elyjah says. “Our viewers look forward to seeing the new vlog content. Since the series launched in 2018, we’ve seen ongoing growth in subscriptions, view times, and overall views.”

While developing the video series, the city redesigned its newsletter, digital branding, and other digital assets to match one another, creating more dynamic experiences across a mix of channels and platforms.

Viewers have said that although What’s Happening in Roseville may be newsy in nature, it doesn’t feel like news. “The feedback is that it’s engaging and interesting, and captures residents’ attention,” Elyjah says. “Most importantly, it keeps them wanting to stay updated with what the city is doing.”

Click here to learn more about the What’s Happening in Roseville video series on Behance.

This project was an Adobe Government Creativity Awards entry. Learn more about AGCA today!