there's a generational opportunity happening right now on LinkedIn if I told you I had a time machine and you could go back to Tik Tok in 2020 or Instagram res in 2021 or even YouTube in 2010 and I let you start posting content from those years would you do it of course you would because if you own a business or you work in marketing you realize that social media is a money printer if you're early to the platform and you know what you're doing right now in 2024 is that moment for LinkedIn short form video look at this this is a graph of my LinkedIn traffic from the last year you see that dead zero no posting no traffic whatsoever and then boom I've generated 15 million impressions over the last year and 99% of them came in the last 6 weeks and it's not just me any of my friends that have listened to me and started posting on LinkedIn have seen that same trajectory so in this video I want to break down three things the first why is this such a massive opportunity and how does it differ from other platforms second what is the Tactical and exact Playbook you should do to take advantage of it either if you already make short form video or not I'll break down both and third I'm also going to break down a few Advanced ideas for what a sophisticated brand could do on LinkedIn right now that I think would crush so first why is this opportunity so huge there's four main reasons and they all stem from the fact that LinkedIn is launching their own for you vertical video feed so LinkedIn sat back and they watched every platform launch a for you feed Tik Tok invented it then Instagram copied it with Instagram reels then YouTube did shorts and now LinkedIn is launching their own version but it's in beta mode and only 10% of the users on LinkedIn have access to it if you open the LinkedIn app there will be a dedicated icon in the bottom nav for the 4u feed but 90% of users don't have it yet I don't even have it that's how new this is now the hack is that if you upload vertical video content to the normal LinkedIn posting window LinkedIn will ID that as vertical and put it in that 4u feed that the 10% of users are seeing so right now 1 million people on LinkedIn can see that feed but as more users get access more and more eyes will go on that feed and onto those videos and the big thing here is that you can get more people that you are not connected with to watch your content at a scale that just wasn't possible via the text only post that LinkedIn is known for so you're getting more attention per unit work that's the big thing that's what everybody's after so the first reason that this is such a big opportunity is that there will be a massive supply and demand mismatch of good content for LinkedIn short form video as soon as the floodgates open to all the users and even now I'm already seeing it now there just isn't enough good video content for people to consume and when you're looking for opportunities where a single amount of effort can lead to extraordinary anomalous results you want supply and demand mismatches I've never seen one as insane as this right now this is what we're seeing with my videos already I'm getting four two 5 million views on a video and we're not even in the first inning yet only 13 million people have access to the feature now reason number two why this is such a big opportunity and this is probably the most important one is that people on LinkedIn are actually looking for good content to share see on most social platforms people don't want to share they want to consume in Silence the default behavior is not to share you will only share if you see something that really moves you or if it's going to earn you social credibility in your group chat DM but the native behavior is for people to just watch and consume and scroll they don't want to do anything else besides consume in silence but LinkedIn weirdly has the opposite dynamic because on LinkedIn people want to seem professionally credible in their field so all day they're going through the feed looking for Content that would earn them that professional credibility and when they see it they're compelled to share and higher shares on any social platform means more virality that means more attention via unit work that's what we want more virality more shares so LinkedIn is actually conditioned to share more this unique Dynamic that people are actually actively looking for content to share because it adds professional credibility that is not found anywhere else and that is a huge huge tailwind and on top of that a bonus thing most companies are forcing employees back to the office 5 days a week at the office employees can't really use social media but LinkedIn is seen as a professional tool so you've got all these employees who are basically trapped in a corporate jail for eight or more hours a day and all they can do is consume content on LinkedIn huge Tailwind now the third reason this is so huge is because LinkedIn is verified only and so there really aren't that many bot accounts on the platform of course you have these Shenanigans where people have these network of fake Pages where they promote other people but for the most part there isn't these bot clouds that are as easily manipulatable on LinkedIn like you find on Tik Tok or Instagram and because of this it'll be easier to assess which messages or offers in your content is actually working because the only people engaging with it are humans there's not as many bot actors that's another huge tailwind and a huge benefit of creating on LinkedIn now the fourth reason and this is the last one I'll go over of why this is such a huge opportunity is that LinkedIn is really a business focused platform and so content with a business slant is what's going to work best so the bar for what type of content will work is actually lower but the scope is narrower you don't have to have this crazy flashbang retention editing but you do have to be talking stuff that's business or business adjacent or like I said earlier people will not share because they're not getting the professional credibility this means that all of those people that have cracked gen Pop Pop Culture gaming all those super viral categories on other platforms they won't be able to play on LinkedIn because their content is not business focused that means the pool will be smaller and there'll be more Eyes For Less videos which means your videos will do better so all of those things the for you page coming the broader audience roll out the positive implicit desire to share content the verified audience the fact that it's business focused with a narrow scope all of those things combined are a massive massive Tailwind that help business content do better also LinkedIn is currently boosting their top videos on the platform because they're trying to create this Behavior Loop and reinforce to people that they should be going to the vertical feed this is kind of like going to a casino and them giving you a free BET and then them boot boosting it with zero risk to you again unfair Advantage but now you probably get it it's a huge opportunity I'll stop harping on it okay now I want to talk about the actual tactics for how you take advantage of this opportunity so you either are making short form videos right now or you're not I've got answers for both if you're not hold on a second if you are you either are making videos that are business focused or you're not first if you are already making videos and they're business focused this is super easy start crossposting those videos on LinkedIn I recommend posting one to two times per day I like to do it at 9:00 a. m. Eastern and 12:00 p.
m. Eastern but the time can vary obviously during work hours during work week days are probably going to be best do not use a scheduler tool cuz LinkedIn Auto throttles when you're using these tools like hoot or whatever it thinks it's botted so it throttles that down just go in the platform and manually post or have your VA post I'll typically write out like a 10 to 15 sentence caption one line per sentence enter it down the typical LinkedIn format at the bottom of the caption I'm putting make sure to follow at my username for more videos like this and I'm including four to five broad hashtags in the actual text I'm including a lot of what I put in the video but I'm trying to complement with additional details that I didn't cover so that the copy actually adds to the video post it's not just a straight rip of the transcript also don't put links in the description I know you're trying to post to get leads but when you put links even a LinkedIn Link in the description it throttles the engagement way down so instead use the LinkedIn premium custom button the way to get that is go to your profile go to edit and then there should be a premium custom button where you can customize that to be go to my blog go to my website go to my newsletter set that that sits right below your profile and when someone's watching your video it's there it's easy to hack that to be clicked instead of something in the description if that's going to throttle engagement make sure to set that button you may need to sign up for LinkedIn premium to have that I'm not sure I have premium and I do have it it's called the premium button I would assume you need premium it's probably worth it because if links in the description are going to throttle you down but that doesn't you're going to want that also if You' making videos for a while obviously do this moving forward where you add LinkedIn but just go back and repost the backlog of the best video you have just post those on LinkedIn okay so if that's you the you have videos and they business focused you're set good luck now if you have videos but they're not business focused you have three options option one you don't do anything you don't take advantage of LinkedIn I wouldn't recommend that unless the product you're ultimately selling is going to straight consumers that would not be on LinkedIn but even if you're selling like a toy or a candy bar it's a good chance the supply chain operators or the buyers in retail are going to be on LinkedIn and so really all roads lead to you wanting to be on LinkedIn you're going to have to interface with some professional at some point so I'd recommend figuring out one of the other two paths path number two is that you record net new content so let's say you make gaming content it's really not made for LinkedIn at all and there's no way you can tailor it you'd make a second set of videos designed for LinkedIn the good news is these don't have to be as High Fidelity it can just be point and shoot with the camera as I'll talk about in a second but you'd want to make a second type of content now if you don't want to do that because it's going to be an additional lift the best way is to try to put a cloak of business around the video you already talk about and you want that slant to be somewhat business related enough so that it Vibes with the professional but that it doesn't take away from the Integrity of the concept of your video now if you're like me you're trying to make one video and post that video everywhere not do any more work than that so if you're not good at cloaking or you think by cloaking with the business idea it's going to devalue the performance of the video elsewhere you're probably going to have to make a second type of content that is what it is I recommend doing this because you have a supply demand mismatch but you're going to have to decide do you have the bandwidth or the resources to be able to make your core content and then also make supplementary content for link so at this point that covers the you've made videos either they're for business sick or they're not for business now you have a plan now let's go to the bucket of the people that don't currently make videos the good news is like I said the Quality Bar in terms of like editing and level of effort required not quality of thought not quality of speech but like the quality of the packaging is the lowest the bar is the lowest on LinkedIn out of every other platform and that's because the supply and demand has not leveled out on reals and Tik Tok and YouTube shorts it is so competitive because there's so many people making it which means the bar for quality is higher but when you're starting out on a platform and you're there early the bar is much much lower that's why the dancing stupid dancing videos on Tik Tok worked so well to beginning the bar for Quality was so low that has not been pushed up so the good news is if you're creating on LinkedIn and you're not creating anywhere else that bar is low so you won't have to do as much to make a video that's good enough and to prove this I'll show you these I make walking Instagram stories where I just walk around my neighborhood and just Riff on a topic these are unedited one take I'll export them put them into cap cut I'll add captions in cap cut just do the auto translator I don't even fix the caption sequencing I export that and re-upload it to Instagram sometimes those videos get like 150,000 views this one got 700,000 views some of them don't do as well so the hit rate is lower but you could just make these point and shoots with zero editing and those will work as well that's what I'm talking about about the quality is so low now the idea I'm talking about and the thought I'm saying is still valuable but the actual packaging of the editing is low so if this is you and you have no idea how to use video software you don't have any cameras none of that which is fine all you need to do is take your iPhone hold it out in front of you look at it and then talk about a topic for 60 seconds I recommend coming up with a list of five things that you feel like your customers need or topics that are on the top of your mind that seem obvious to you but not to others pick one of those write the first couple sentences as if you were to intro that idea to a friend and then the rest of the video should just be you adding value don't make it about you don't say who you are don't take 10 seconds in the intro being like I'm the president CEO XXX of this nobody cares about you sadly they only care about the information and at the beginning when you're posting the first 15 to 20 videos you just want to get high density of information and start associating your face and your little profile picture with value towards a topic so that's what you want to do take your phone no need for a tripod go outside or go up to a window with natural light that's all you need and then I would recommend adding captions to it if you post on LinkedIn and Trigger the auto caption thing it's going to be the normal captions closed captions you see on TV shows you don't want that get cap cut and then when you're in cap cut all you have to do is upload the video very easy and then go go to the captions Tab and just pick the first one you know they all say the quick brown fox but one of them shows the color changing from word to word you can pick whatever caption style you want a lot of them are free I pay n bucks a month for cap cut for the premium caption that I want just pick one of those it'll Auto translate it auto use the captions export it out and upload it couldn't be easier than that you already can write the caption you already can add the hashtags all you have to do is point and shoot and talk it's going to feel weird for the first few videos but I promise you it's much easier to record a selfie video than it would be to look into a DSLR like I am doing now because everybody's used to FaceTiming so treat it like a FaceTime and do it that way that should be the first 20 or 30 videos you make now I also have two free resources that I put together specifically for this use case someone's never made a video before or they really want to level up with content the first one is my free short form video course it's also a community there's 1,400 people in there it's called wavy World in there I've put together 15 modules that walk through everything about how to come up with good video ideas how to edit how to package how to think about it the psychology some examples I've got a few case studies where I go through my full end to-end process for like an hour of like writing down the ideas this is a very helpful beginners guide it's completely free so i' recommend you at least jumping in there and looking at the videos to see if you want them school. com wavy World I'll put the link below completely free the second thing which is also free is my content newsletter so content.
game is the URL now if you're hearing about LinkedIn shorts for the first time this is kind of like The Cutting Edge content strategy we're here early we're so early if you want to be read in on these types of Cutting Edge unfair Advantage type things this is what I do all day long so that newsletter content department at content. game all I'm doing weekly is sending you Trends and breaking down content that I think is working that is ahead of the curve so if you want to be ahead of the curve with growth specifically related to content it's a no-brainer it's free so content.
