Linkedin video marketing is a powerful tool to create more engaging content for your followers. It gives you a chance to offer your followers a glance at your brands' world and helps you to construct a more personal and emotional bond with your audience.
But every social media platform has different technical and contextual limitations for video marketing. Your audiences on different social media platforms expect different content from you on different topics with distinct formats and specs. So, it won't be wise to use the same video content for every platform.
Why is video marketing getting so popular for businesses?
Video content is getting more popular every day, especially for younger consumers. In Animato's research, it is indicated that consumers prefer video over other content types while learning about a new product, and it is the most memorable content in every age group.
When you think about video content, maybe LinkedIn is not among the top three social media platforms that come to mind. But things have changed for B2B marketing, too.
LinkedIn is not a text-heavy social media platform anymore; the first video features were launched in 2017, and LinkedIn has continued with great ambitions to invest in video marketing features.
Zeynep Morelli
Now, the use of video content as a part of LinkedIn marketing solutions is on the rise. As the LinkedIn video content generates five times more engagement than image or text content, 66% of the marketers reported that they included video content in their LinkedIn marketing strategy.
Obviously, the demand for content video is out there. It is time to break the stereotype that text-heavy content works the best for B2B marketing. If you are still not convinced, consider the fact that Live Video content can get 24 times more engagement from your target audience on LinkedIn. How does that sound?
Well, at this point, our question should not be whether the video content works in LinkedIn B2B marketing, but how to leverage LinkedIn for marketing with video content.
How to use video content in LinkedIn marketing solutions?
You can integrate video content into your LinkedIn marketing strategy in four different ways:
- Embedded LinkedIn Video Posts
- LinkedIn Native Videos
- LinkedIn Video Ads
- LinkedIn Live Videos
Here we have prepared a detailed guide for you about how to use each video content type in your LinkedIn marketing solutions.
#1 Embedded LinkedIn Video Posts
For many professionals on LinkedIn, it is still common to upload a video on another platform like YouTube or Vimeo. Then they share the content as an embedded video on LinkedIn. This is what we call an embedded LinkedIn video post.
Embedded video can be a simpler way to share video content on LinkedIn as you do not need to follow the LinkedIn video specs guide. But the tricky part is embedded videos do not auto-play in the LinkedIn feed. So, it will be much harder for you to grab the attention of your target audience.
Moreover, there is a risk for low engagement rates as the video content is not platform-specific. All social media platforms have unique preferences, and LinkedIn native videos are preferred more by LinkedIn's own algorithm. So if you want to establish a powerful LinkedIn B2B marketing strategy, we strongly suggest you prefer LinkedIn Native videos instead of embedded video content.
#2 LinkedIn Native Videos
LinkedIn native videos are the most effective video content that complies with your daily posts. Unlike LinkedIn embedded videos, LinkedIn native videos play automatically while scrolling down in the feed, so it is easier to grab your target audience's attention.
You can publish LinkedIn native videos on your personal profile or your company's page. There are some fundamental basics you should consider while you are producing your LinkedIn video posts.
Firstly, you need to pay attention to the LinkedIn video specs. You can find the up-to-date guide below. Be cautious about the differences in the guidelines for LinkedIn native video specs and LinkedIn Video Ad specs. Make sure that you follow the proper guideline.
LinkedIn Video Specs for native video content
- Video length should be between 3 seconds – 10 minutes.
- The allowed LinkedIn video size interval is 75KB – 5 GB.
- Orientation can be horizontal or vertical, but vertical videos are cropped automatically into a square in the feed.
- LinkedIn video dimensions can be 1:2.4 or 2.4:1
- Resolution range is 256x144 to 4096x2304
- Bit rates: 192 kbps – 30 Mbps, and frame rates: 10 – 60 frames per second.
- Supported file formats are ASF, AVI, FLV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, MKV, QuickTime, WebM, H264/AVC, MP4, VP8, VP9, WMV2, and WMV3.
You can post a 10-minutes video on LinkedIn but be aware that only 3 minutes for a video is highly considered a long one. It would be better for your LinkedIn marketing strategy to produce to-the-point video content shorter than 1 minute.
Most of the viewers decide if the video is worth watching in the very first 3 seconds. So, we advise you to use these 3 seconds wisely; put something attractive rather than a usual brand intro.
Keep in mind that it is the viewer's choice to keep the sound on or off while watching the LinkedIn video posts. You need to create your content with captions regarding the sounds-off option. At this point, effective headlines will also help you to get the viewer's attention.
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#3 LinkedIn Video Ads
You can also integrate a paid video ad into your LinkedIn marketing strategy if you have the resources. LinkedIn allows you to reach out to a specific target audience in every stage of the buyer's journey.
Your objective can be to increase your brand awareness on LinkedIn, generate leads with LinkedIn pre-filled forms, or drive traffic to your website or a product page.
You need the be careful with the LinkedIn video specs for video ads as there are some main differences with LinkedIn native video specs. We suggest you check LinkedIn's own advertising specifications guideline.
If your advertisement doesn't meet the general advertising guidelines of LinkedIn, your ad will be removed from the platform, and there is a risk that the advertiser may be restricted from further advertising on LinkedIn.
You are allowed to upload a 30 minutes video content as a LinkedIn video ad, but shorter is the better. LinkedIn also tells you that "the most successful video ads are less than 15 seconds long" in the LinkedIn video specs guideline. And keep in mind that you need to catch your target audience's attention in the first 3 seconds of the video.
As in the recommendations for native LinkedIn videos, captions are really important. Sounds can be more attractive, but 80% of LinkedIn videos are watched with sounds off. So, keep the sound-off option available for your target audience with caption integration.
57% of LinkedIn B2B content is watched on mobile. So, your visuals and captions' size should be suitable for mobile view.
Professionals search LinkedIn to acquire in-depth insights about brands' products and services. So, LinkedIn video ads are a great opportunity to present your products. Based on LinkedIn's own research, product demos have the highest performance in video completion, engagement and click-through rates.
Also, if it is an option for you, you can include an offer in your LinkedIn video ad. The ads with an offer mentioned in the headline have achieved an 8% higher completion rate on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn video ads with long descriptions don't perform very well. It is suggested to use 100-150 characters for the introductory text, which should be shorter than three lines. Even if you write longer than two lines, the "See more" link will be triggered. So you need to mention the main idea in the first two lines.
For more LinkedIn video ads content tips, you can check LinkedIn's video marketing strategy guideline and also, you can get inspired by LinkedIn success stories.
#4 LinkedIn Live Videos
LinkedIn Live Video allows you to broadcast live video content on a LinkedIn page, profile or LinkedIn event by using third-party streaming tools. But only approved members and organizations can use this tool for now as the tool is currently in beta.
If you have a powerful presence on LinkedIn, feel confident about video content production and comply with LinkedIn's set of selection criteria, you can apply to become a LinkedIn Live Broadcaster.
Live videos are very useful to build deeper connections with the target audience and drive more engagement. In LinkedIn's case, the live videos generate 7 times more reactions and 24 times more engagement than the native video content.
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Wrapping up
Always on LinkedIn marketing strategy can also help you to grow your business organically. However, in always-on marketing strategies, management can be as challenging as content production.
In this regard, you can always use social media publisher tools to help you find content ideas and schedule LinkedIn posts.
Video content production can be more challenging than text and visual content, but it will be worth the effort.
If you are interested to learn more about how to leverage LinkedIn for marketing with video content, you can check out the 1-hour long webinar of LinkedIn.
Zeynep Morelli
