Putting Video in Your Profile, Not How, But Why?

If you have been paying any attention at all you have seen a number of articles and posts popping up on how to put video into your LinkedIn in profile. It appears there may be a couple of ways to do this.

Since there is already a ton of information on how to do this, and the how isn’t the most important point, I thought I would share some strategies on why and what the content of your video should be.

Before reading this article I suggest you read one of my previous posts — http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog//2009/08/a-marketing-formula-for-linkedin-and-other-social-media/ A Marketing Formula for LinkedIn and Other Social Media. This post will tell you how to construct the message in your video for maximum effect.

The first tip I would give you about placing a video on your page is make it very short and if possible let people know how long the video is before they go to watch it. If your video is around three minutes you will have a lot more people take the plunge than if it is much longer. Remember that people are busy. Telling them up front how long the video is will let them know they have time to watch it.

Second, don’t do a video that sells your product or service. If people want a sales pitch they’ll call you. This would be a violation of good networking principles.

There are two subjects I think will give you the most success.

A personal video

The first is a video about you, you as a person, and as a networker on LinkedIn. Tell people your dreams and how you’d like to help them achieve theirs – offer to help them get connected or find opportunities on LinkedIn.

Offer if you wish your wisdom, but not your products or services. You can do this by just saying I have expertise in X, Y, and Z and if you have any questions in these areas I would be happy to point you in the right direction or give you some input. Be careful how you do this, you don’t want it to sound like a pitch – you might even have a couple of people watch it and get their opinions of the tone before you make it public.

Valuable information

The second subject for a video is valuable information – tell or teach people how to do something that will help them. Here of course you can focus around the subject of your product or services but make sure the video is not about your offer but about learning or doing something that will be valuable.

Make an offer

Finally, make an offer of other valuable information at the end of your video be it personal or educational that gives them another value item. This report or other information should be like the information video – not sales, just value and put that item on your website. This brings them to your site.

When they land make sure they are getting value and not a sales pitch – if you’ve given them good stuff the chance are they will look around your site.

Make sure there’s real value

One other subtle point about offering value – try to stay away from giveaways (your video, white papers, etc.) that simply tell someone something is important but don’t give them something specific they can actually do to improve their situation.

This is a tact taken by many free seminar offers – but when you get to the seminar you find that they don’t give you anything you can really use – for the useful stuff you have to pay. I’m not saying you should give away the farm – but if you are going to give something of value make sure it has some.

I hope you find this post valuable and would appreciate your comments and sharing of this information and blog with others via any of the social media.