Six months ago I started posting vertical videos on LinkedIn because multiple sources, including Richard van der Blom and Social Media Today, said the algorithm had been changed to give most free organic reach to posts with vertical video.
Also, I noticed some of my media contacts posting them. That confirmed their social media experts felt it was worth doing to maximise the reach of posts.
So I started writing scripts for short videos to introduce blogs on topics useful to those connected to and following me. And shot, edited and posted the videos.
Here are my top 15 lessons from the experience.
1 – Shoot your video horizontal – so you can post the horizontal version on other channels where that’s a better format for your audience, such as YouTube and embedded in your website, if you want to do that. You can crop it to vertical when you edit it.
2 – Have a script or notes of the key points you want to make. Even as a trained broadcaster, I find it a lot harder to shoot these without some notes to ensure I include all the key points I want to mention. Once you get beyond a couple of sentences, it’s a lot harder than you might expect. A few sentences written down you can practice and run through will help.
Or, if you’re recording your video on your phone, check out the Riverside app – which has a handy autocue feature to allow you to read your script as you record it. No excuses for fluffing your lines! [HT to my OUBS MBA cohort pal Suzanne Smith for that tip ]
3 – You need a good hook to convert the extra reach your post will get into engagement. My experience is posting a vertical video over other formats will get your post up to three times the free organic reach of the same text with just a photo.
But you need to convert those extra Impressions into Engagement (what matters more), which will further boost reach and get more engagement, including from people outside your network (the most valuable).
Andy Barr’s videos have good examples of visual ones.
As his visual humour style isn’t right for me, in my scripts I start with a pain point my video and blog will address – something relevant to my audience – to get viewers’ attention and then ask the questions they have about it and pledge to answer them in the blog.
4 – Make sure you include a Call To Action – there’s no point getting people’s attention and interest and not using that engagement to ask them do something you want. Even if it’s just to read your blog.
5 – All your post content doesn’t need to be in the video – trying to make a word-perfect video of longer than 10 seconds is too much pressure for anyone. And the data, via Dan Slee, shows the optimum length for LinkedIn is 30 seconds. So forget anything longer.
Think of it more as an algorithm-friendly intro to some other content you want to link to, ideally also on LinkedIn so as not to have your post reach-limited by the algorithm for taking users out of the platform.
I use these to link to high-value content I’ve previously posted which didn’t get the reach or engagement I hoped for. Basically, an ICYMI post with an algorithmic boost.
6 – Dress and set the scene for the first impression you want to make with new potential clients/partners in your audience – Just like meeting in-person for the first time. First impressions count and are hard to change later if they weren’t what you’d want.
7. Ensure your sound and lighting are good enough not to be a distraction – they’re the two quickest ways for a video to scream ‘Amateur Hour’. Not the first impression you want to make on LinkedIn!
As I shoot video professionally, I use my professional-spec DSLR and , plus a reflector and professional video light, but as long as you have non-coloured light on your face (being in silhouette against a bright background is bad) and your voice is clearly heard without any other distracting noises, that’s fine.
8 – Add your own captions to your videos, rather than relying on the automatic captioning offered on LinkedIn.
It’s good accessibility to do this anyway – partly for those with hearing issues, but also for those watching with the sound off – but my accidental experience was that the auto-captioning on LinkedIn isn’t accurate enough for all voices (many US systems have an issue with soft Scottish accents like mine). So you’re better off adding them before you upload your video.
I first tried this in Adobe Express and found it was ok, but better, if slightly more complex, in Adobe Premiere Pro.
In case you’ve not tried it, the process is for Premiere Pro to create a transcript and then captions from it. It to allows you to have it create a transcript as you upload the video (a good start and fairly accurate). You can then edit that to correct any mistranscriptions before getting it to create captions in a style, font and line length of your choice. You can then control where they appear on the screen.
9 – Crop your video to vertical before creating your captions – or the line length will be for the wider horizontal original.
10 – Always make a headline thumbnail to add to the video. This is the first thing the user sees when they see your video in their feed, so it needs to grab their attention and engage them enough to play the video. So include a short headline summarising what the video is about.
YouTube star Mr Beast reportedly spends seriously large amounts of money on the thumbnails for his videos because they significantly help his engagement rate. The right content will help you too.
You can add a graphic if it’ll summarise the content, and be more engaging than the first frame of your face. Or if the first frame is you blinking or looking awkward.
11 – Switch off auto-captioning when you upload the video – otherwise it will add often-inaccurate captions over your ones. It’s on by default if you’re scheduling natively in LinkedIn, so click the ‘CC’ button and switch it off.
12 – Add your thumbnail – you have to add it manually.
13 – Add a title – this will help LinkedIn understand and index its content – to help it show it to relevant people.
14 – Post your vertical video on other platforms where vertical video is a good option to reach your audience/s and say the right things about your brand – you’ve already made it, so use it elsewhere too. It’s ideal for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads and BlueSky.
15 – Don’t expect vertical videos to transform your LinkedIn reach, engagement or conversion – they’re just a means to get the attention of more users. The content you provide is what matters. Vertical video is just a way to get it in front of more people. Make it useful and insightful and you should see engagement, reach and whatever other goals you have improve.
Thinking of using best practice communication to help reach your business goals?
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