Nowadays, videos have become an essential part of story-telling and marketing, and if your brand isn’t utilizing video as content yet, then you’re definitely missing out. I’ve had the pleasure to talk with Sean Cannell, a renowned influencer in digital marketing, a keynote speaker, and a video marketing expert. Sean also founded Think Media and wrote YouTube Secrets. He’s an international speaker on topics in digital marketing, online business and the role of video marketing in both fields. This amazing guy has also over a million YouTube followers in his channel and runs a seven-digit online video education company.
You can watch the interview below or continue reading to learn more about the secrets to LinkedIn Video.
LinkedIn Video: A Fast-Rising, Potential-Rich Feature Every Professional Should Unlock
LinkedIn is a popular B2B platform that’s designed mainly to connect professionals with other professionals. LinkedIn’s video feature is an excellent way to attract and build more professional relationships with individuals and companies. Sean dishes out on how essential LinkedIn video would be in your digital marketing company.
According to Sean, LinkedIn is the wealthiest social network online. It may not be the largest, but it’s the wealthiest. Decision-makers and people with money are on the platform from entrepreneurs and business owners. They’ve only had the ability to upload a native video for a little over a year and they’re just now adding live video and most people are asleep on it. In fact, half the audience was like, “LinkedIn?”
Most people think that LinkedIn is just for a resume, but it’s so much more.
It’s a social network with 550 million monthly or total users and around a quarter million monthly active users; it’s one of the most active social network platforms. A lot of people are active seven days a week and they’re highly engaged ready to make decisions.
So, if you want to have business happen, uploading videos on LinkedIn is strategic on how to attract the kind of business you want. Video is also dominating everywhere whether it’s Facebook Watch, Facebook Live, native Facebook video, Instagram, video in the feed, obviously, Stories is video, and Instagram Live is a major thing. Video is everywhere and once you start diving into the waters of video, I think it’s the content format of choice as Social Media Examiner discovered. And so, you need that mix — words, pictures — but you want to be having video on every platform.
LinkedIn video has several great formats and I wanted to know from Sean which of these he thinks is converting better. He has graciously shared his best practices that each of us should be looking into.
Sean Cannell’s LinkedIn Video Best Practices
Number one, keep in mind that you only have 10 minutes per video. Number two, from the experts I’ve interviewed, keeping your video between two to five minutes is actually better because they’re a little bit shorter, nugget bite-size digestible videos. Number three, it doesn’t have to be all about only business.
Sean also goes to say that videos on LinkedIn don’t have to be “business-y” as your audience are still humans. Content is always the inner game and inner struggle. He also had a hard realization about his first few video content on LinkedIn. “Initially when I approached LinkedIn, I thought, ‘Okay, I should share the latest stats about online video. I should kinda be technical” he explained.
“And dude, nobody wants that. But if I share my mistakes or even some bloopers, I’ve become relatable. You’re going to connect with other people and it can start a conversation. I think the other thing is the target audience. On YouTube, my target audiences are people or users who are trying to figure out video, trying to find the right camera.”
Sean goes to say that LinkedIn is different because you want video content that would put you in a great position with brands. For instance, he has worked with Canon and DJI, and he realized that his video content should speak about his brand towards decision-makers.
“So, you want to always reverse engineer. What is your end goal? This is true across all platforms, you wanna be contextual and native to the platform, and so it doesn’t necessarily mean the same kind of content. What is it you’re trying to achieve? Reverse engineer that, and then put those videos out on LinkedIn.”
Sean also says that keeping your videos real and raw is also important in achieving your goal.
“When you grab your phone or a little point and shoot camera, share from the heart and add some value because you can really crush it there. Then a final advanced tip, here’s how LinkedIn works: when you put out a good piece of content on LinkedIn and people engage with it, it will be distributed to their second and third connections. So how could you get into a stranger’s feed on LinkedIn? If you get more connections, and engage with them, then that video can get pushed to you too. Then it’ll be two removed and three removed from me through you.”
Getting Ahead of The Curve With LinkedIn Video
I’m wanting to grow my network, as well as put out quality content that more people engage with. Think about the virality of that: it’s like word of mouth, whether they share it, comment and like, those engagement signals help boost it. Even if they just engage and don’t even think to share it, LinkedIn is distributing that down the chain of connections leading to a ton of possibilities. The final thing is just like anything else there is really a window of opportunity when people are asleep on a platform. I heard this stat a little while ago, but it’s said that less than 500 humans are uploading a video a day at least in one week’s time.
Sean says that doing a video on LinkedIn presents an awesome opportunity to get ahead of the curve. “Where it’s attention for pennies for free for nothing because you’re gonna be one of the very few people that are actually doing this before everybody gets on the train. Probably 100,000 people are uploading multiple videos a day on YouTube right now. Less than 500 are uploading a day, like some quick clips, testing, feeling it out.”
He continues “…and that’ll be the last thing, is that we can get real tactical, it can be overwhelming. You really just gotta start. Punch fear in the face, punch perfectionism in the face, press record, and post that video online, and then learn and study that, look what happened, look what resonated, look what post got the most comments and really struck the emotional core of your audience, and then double-down and follow-up on that topic. Because what I’ve learned is you can’t steer a parked car.”
After you’ve recorded and uploaded your first video, you’d want to “optimize your strategy as you go,” as Sean calls it.
So, if you want to learn more about what Sean does and how he does it, learn more valuable content for your business, you can subscribe and follow him on Think Media on YouTube. Think Media shares a lot about tips on cameras and lighting as well as enlightening interviews with video influencers. Think Media helps people build their influence with video.
Sean also has a book called YouTube Secrets which you have to check out, but for everything that’s video-wise, he is our go-to guy.
As a wrap-up, it’s essential to explore the potential of LinkedIn video, whether you’re just an ordinary guy looking to build up connections, a professional wanting to showcase your brand, or a company or organization, LinkedIn video can be a very powerful tool for you. Video is consumable and digestible, and it’s certainly an awesome content format that’ll even be more popular in the future. So if you’re not doing LinkedIn video yet, it’s high time to do it before every else does.