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LinkedIn Video Best Practices for Social Selling Success

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LinkedIn recently released a native video feature on its mobile app.  A few folks have even seen it pop up on the browser.  And by now, most of us have one form or another.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that people are using it willy-nilly, resulting in a lot of bad videos out there.  When it comes to native video and social selling on LinkedIn, what do you need to know?  How can you use it to build your brand, rather than break it?

Use #LinkedInVideo to build your brand, not break it! @LinkedInExpert tells us all about itClick To Tweet

Benefits include the building of your business and personal brand.  Native Video also enables you to step up your communications with connections. Plus, video is getting a lot of engagement.

Let’s take a look at your best strategies when approaching video on LinkedIn.

Increased Visibility


Previously, unless you were one of LinkedIn’s Influencers, the only way to add video on LinkedIn was to share a YouTube or Vimeo link. I’ve been sharing my YouTube videos for years, but none of those posts have received the level of engagement that LinkedIn video has. Plus, when you upload a YouTube video, it’s clearly a YouTube video.

On LinkedIn, most people engage either through updates and messages, but communicating through text is limiting. You lose a lot of interpersonal connection when people can’t see your face and hear your tone.

Video gives people a better sense of who you are, and engenders trust, encourages engagement, increases visibility, and emphasizes your brand. People are more likely to connect with you after seeing your videos, and you never know what business can develop from new relationships.

LinkedIn Video Analytics

Your personality and voice are crucial in marketing and sales, and social video helps you to showcase your knowledge and expertise.

LinkedIn Request to Connect


How to Use LinkedIn Video

Download or update the LinkedIn app on your phone.  If you see a little video camera icon, you have the LinkedIn video feature.

Look at the Update field on the home page of LinkedIn on your computer.  If you have the little video camera icon, then you have the new video feature.

LinkedIn Video mobile upload

Create your video on your phone or computer.  Use the video camera icon to upload the video from your camera roll or computer.

There are some limitations:

LinkedIn Video camera roll

The minimum LinkedIn video length is three seconds; maximum is ten minutes. Maximum file size is 5 gigabytes (See the full requirements here). I have found that when I upload a video from my computer to my phone (using airdrop, dropbox, or even messenger), that the video compresses enough to upload to LinkedIn.  Videos I create on my computer using Screenflow or Camtasia is usually much too large to upload as is.  This is probably why LinkedIn released the feature on mobile first.

Less is more! @LinkedInExpert says keep your #LinkedInVideos under 3 min. and 5 GB for this reason...Click To Tweet

Above and beyond LinkedIn’s limitations, remember that even on LinkedIn, where people tend to share more time-consuming business content, attention spans are still short. So keeping your videos under three minutes is good practice.

Once you’ve uploaded your LinkedIn video, make sure to add some text to your update to add context, drive traffic, or share more information.  You can do this step either before or after you add the video. The text limit is 700 characters, so be sure to include talking points that will encourage people to watch. For example, for a how-to video, either outline the steps or write a short update that gives a taste of the content and then link to a longer blog or LinkedIn Publisher post.

If you don’t want to compose your updates directly on your device, you can send yourself an email or write the update in a cloud app, such as Notes, Evernote or Google Docs and then copy and paste it into LinkedIn.

The same rules as with other updates, apply here. Add links, tag people if you mention them, and include relevant hashtags.

LinkedIn Video Sample

 

Once you’ve added context, click “Post,” just as you would for a regular update. On an Android phone you can do other things while your video is posting, but on an iPhone, you need to stay in the app. Just be aware that with more people using the video feature, it does seem to be taking longer for video updates to publish. So, don’t plan on posting your video right before an important sales call!

You also have the ability to add the native video link to your profile via the mobile app. Click the three dots on the top right of your post to copy the link.  Then go into Settings, edit your Intro section, and upload the video to Media in your Summary. You can add the video link to any Media section, and you can also add it to Facebook!

Want to add video to LI publisher? Take a screenshot of the video, copy the video link, and then hyperlink the image to the video.

LinkedIn Video Editing

Want to add #video to #LinkedIn publisher? Follow these steps from @LinkedInExpert #socialvideoClick To Tweet

Your videos play automatically in the feed, but the volume doesn’t go on until someone clicks the sound. SO, you may want to make the extra effort to caption your videos.  Since Facebook automatically captions videos, you could create your video on Facebook, save it, and then upload it to LinkedIn through your phone!

Best Practices for LinkedIn Videos

You can create live, spontaneous videos on LinkedIn, say at an event or while interviewing someone on the spur of the moment, but high-quality produced videos will get more views. For this reason, I recommend spending some time creating and editing your LinkedIn video before you upload it.

While there are plenty of video editing mobile apps, I recommend producing your LinkedIn videos on your desktop and then sending (airdropping) them to your phone to upload, which should keep them under 5 GB.

My favorite software for recording video includes the screen sharing tools Screenflow (for Mac) and Camtasia (Mac and PC), as well as video conference tool Zoom.us and the video email tool OneMob, which also gives you the ability to drop in a background image if you have a green screen. I record using a Logitech 920 webcam and a Blue Snowball microphone, Logitech headset, or lavaliere mic. The Mac app Webcam allows me to easily adjust my video settings.

If you want to read off a script, there are plenty of free teleprompter apps you can download and use (and OneMob has one built in!).

Is it better to edit #LinkedInVideo on desktop or mobile? @LinkedinExpert answers #socialvideoClick To Tweet

Video Editing LinkedIn Video

If your brand is exactly the same on Facebook and LinkedIn, and you share the same content, you can share the same videos. But LinkedIn is more business focused, and you want to make sure your content stays in line with and relevant to the brand you’ve created on LinkedIn. For this reason, you may want your LinkedIn videos to be different than those you share on other platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Use LinkedIn native videos to introduce yourself and your company, and talk about how you can help your viewers. Create videos that answer FAQs in your industry or company, show how-to’s and demos, or promote a book, a webinar, or class. The options are endless, but don’t forget to include the link!

Remember, as with any social media strategy, you want your content to be 80% helpful and 20% promotional.

Final Thoughts

Most of the major social media networks have enabled users to share native video (either live or pre-recorded) with their friends, fans, and followers, so video was definitely something missing from LinkedIn.

Since LinkedIn is B2B, most of the people on the platform (not including marketers) are not video savvy and will not use the feature. That means the people who record native LinkedIn video will get the visibility, reach, and benefits that go along with it.

Video can, and will, amplify your brand. Do it well, and the effect can massively increase your appeal and engagement.

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A version of this article was first published on the Social Media Examiner

 

 

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