Getty Images; iStock; Natalie Ammari/BI
LinkedIn is taking aim at TikTok — and creators are intrigued.
Since the spring, the Microsoft-owned platform has been gradually rolling out a TikTok-style vertical video feed that features career advice, industry news, and other creator content. A LinkedIn spokesperson said "most" users now have access to it. Videos can also appear in the app's main feed.
Meghana Dhar, a creator with 15,000 LinkedIn followers, said her LinkedIn "engagement has just exploded" since she started posting videos. She added that LinkedIn moving toward video "indicates that they're taking creators really seriously."
Several creators, including Dhar, told BI that they often see much more engagement and impressions on their video posts than on their text or photo ones. Engagement refers to interactions with a post, such as a like, while impressions are how many people view a piece of content.
Dhar said, for example, that a recent text post she shared on LinkedIn got about 10,000 impressions, while a video of her talking to the camera hit over 2 million impressions. Marketing strategist Caroline Giegerich found that her LinkedIn video posts reached three times as many people as her text posts did.
A LinkedIn spokesperson said video posts — including videos shared from individual profiles and pages — get 1.4 times as much engagement on average as other posts on LinkedIn.
While the concept of LinkedIn video might feel strange to some users, it could be a key for the platform to cement itself as a core platform for creators, unlock more ad revenue, and keep people checking their feeds regularly. The top platforms for creators, such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, are all heavily focused on video.
"I am on a personal mission to make LinkedIn a daily habit for people," Jamé Jackson, a LinkedIn community manager, told BI. "We are so much more than just a platform for job searching."
This isn't LinkedIn's first attempt at video. In 2019, LinkedIn launched its live video product. In 2020, it launched a "Stories" feature, which lets users share disappearing videos (that shut down in 2021).
Still, there is some indication that this current, TikTok-like push might be what finally breaks through.
"Our investments in rich formats, like video, strengthen our leadership in B2B advertising and amplify the value we deliver to our customers," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the company's October earnings call. "Weekly immersive video views increased 6x quarter-over-quarter and total video viewership on LinkedIn is up 36% year-over-year."
So, what makes a good LinkedIn video?
Jackson said to avoid creating content that "feels way too sales-y and promotional" and to keep the video to under two minutes: short, snappy, and actionable.
"The call to action is important because I always like to secretly tell people that the comments section is the liquid gold of LinkedIn," Jackson said. "The way you do that is by inviting people to the party, inviting them to the table after you've created that video, asking them to share in the comments things that they have learned."
LinkedIn has also seen an uptick in "faceless video content," where people aren't front and center, Jackson said, adding that it had generally performed well.
The platform has encouraged CEOs and executives to talk about breaking news as well, Jackson said.
Creators generally say that compared to other platforms like TikTok and Instagram, LinkedIn is much less saturated — and that's an opportunity to build audiences.
"I've been posting on LinkedIn almost daily, certainly every weekday for a couple of years now," said Avi Gandhi, who has 23,000 LinkedIn followers.
Gandhi has recently focused on short-form video content, posting three to four times a week and often promoting his newsletter by calling out the name and including a link to subscribe at the end of the text post.
Career coach and creator Jahleane Dolne said she often uses LinkedIn to post podcast clips. While her largest following is on TikTok (about 34,000), Dolne said her podcast clips are a better fit for the LinkedIn audience.
Despite the audience growth for some creators, the ecosystem for making money on LinkedIn isn't yet fully developed. That may be changing, though. Three of the creators BI spoke with said they were either already working on LinkedIn-focused brand deals or actively reaching out to potential sponsors. And earlier this year, the marketing agency Creator Authority launched with a focus on LinkedIn.
However, the platform has not yet introduced a monetization program similar to those on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube that directly pays creators.
"If LinkedIn launches monetization for videos where you could start making money from the videos that you post, that would be huge," Gandhi said. "That would be incredible and that would make it all worth it."
