Video on LinkedIn has grown in popularity and effectiveness as a media since this post was originally published. Here are 5 Ways to stand out with video on LinkedIn:
Video Connects People
There’s no doubt that Facebook live has lead the video revolution first for business pages and now for personal pages with Periscope right up there when they launched live. Instagram and Twitter launched their versions of live streaming video the end of 2016.
Video connects people and it’s time we all get in the game if we want to gain a competitive advantage. For those of us in the B2B space, there are so many opportunities to build brand awareness. Here are some ideas:
– You can use live video for customer service in a Q & A format
– You could stream a series – such as teaching your audience something
– Launch a sale via live video
– Demonstrate a product or service
– Behind the scenes of your company
– Contests & Giveaways
Opportunities for LinkedIn Users
Last year LinkedIn released an app called LinkedIn Record. The app is for recording live video and was released only to a limited number of thought leaders and only for iPhone. This is historically how LinkedIn launches new items, first to a limited number of users before they release it to all LinkedIn users. Again, I am referring only to live video. You have had the capability of adding a You Tube link to a status update, company page or your profile for quite some time.
5 Ways to Stand Out with Video on LinkedIn
1. Add a video clip to the experience section of your profile via “Upload Media”
This is an opportunity to highlight a company promotional video, you speaking, demonstrating your product or any number of other ideas to enhance your brand. Video tells a story and for businesses, this is a great way to build brand awareness.
2. Share an update
From the home page where you ‘Start a Post’ you can choose video. You want to upload a native file known as an MP4 video file. Ideally your clip would be under a couple of minutes to hold the viewers attention and should include captions because most viewers in LinkedIn tend to have the sound turned off and a caption could easily attract their attention.
3. Turn a presentation into a video
Get creative and design a short presentation in Power Point or Keynote and save it as a video. I suggest creating something that adds value versus selling something. The more fun and value-based your content is, the more credibility and trust you develop. I would make this type of video short, between 30-60 seconds. The idea is to create interest, not to ask someone to sit through a full-feature presentation.
Another presentation/video style tool is Animoto. Create videos quickly and professionally according to your content strategy.
4. Enhance your articles
If you are writing articles (previously known as published posts), this is a great place to embed a short video clip as it relates to the topic of your article. I have seen users embedding a video replacing any written text. I believe this is not the way to use this feature. I typically think shorter videos again are better because people are busy and like to scan or listen quickly. This would be a great place for a teaser type of video or perhaps you highlight one point in your article adding additional value with the visual enhancement.
In my article, How to Use LinkedIn Articles to Gain Greater Visibility I offer 10 Tips to writing good content on LinkedIn. Incorporate these ideas along with embedding a great video and your content will get noticed and commented on.
5. Follow-Up and Close the Sale via Messenger
The messenger app is becoming an important communication tool across platforms and LinkedIn is no exception. If you are in sales, you could be using messenger to both follow-up with a lead you may have connected with and sent a proposal or as a touchpoint message to stay top of mind. How about creating a quick video message? It is so much more personal and brings a more human element to the conversation.
A strategy I learned from a fellow LinkedIn trainer is to create a short video message that you send out to new connections welcoming them to your network. You can quickly record a message on your phone and upload it to your YouTube channel saving it as ‘unlisted.’ This way, when you send the link, only the person who has the link can view the message and not everyone who subscribes to your YouTube channel. There are many new video recording tools to make it simple such as One Mob and BigVu.
There are also many video editing tools that make the process easier. The capacity to edit your Zoom recordings, add soundwaves to your podcast videos, add company logos/watermarks, and – perhaps most importantly – add subtitles automatically to any video (using speech recognition software) is something that businesses and business-people around the globe are seeking. There are good resources for editing such as VEED.IO, a video editor that has been designed to be accessible to people with little-to-no editing experience. This will enable you to get your video clips up and posted quickly.
Incorporate video into your content strategy
Whether you are building awareness and driving leads for your business or building influence in your niche to move up in your company or seek other employment, you need a content plan to win on LinkedIn. Video should be part of your overall content plan. It is powerful and is not going away anytime soon.
A great way to get ideas is by turning to big brands. They have resources to produce more elaborate video’s but we can take what they spent the money on and incorporate the ideas into our own strategy.
Scroll the newsfeed daily and watch for the ‘Sponsored’ video. These are by companies that are paying for advertising. I like to view them for ideas. In addition, always check out what your competition is putting out for content and then endeavor to be better! Video is a fantastic way to differentiate you, your company and your employees. There is no better time than NOW.
Are you creating a video now? Please let me know and share a video clip – would love to see what you are doing.
