How to Optimize Videos on your LinkedIn Featured Section for Conversions

Before going into detail about how to execute a captivating and converting featured section, you may be wondering > what is LinkedIn's featured section and why should you care? I break it down for you in this short article:

1. What is LinkedIn's featured section?
2. Why should you care?
3. How to optimize videos for the featured section.
4. How to turn on your featured section in case you haven't enabled it.

What is Linkedin's featured section?

The featured section allows LinkedIn users to showcase specific posts, articles, links, and media at the top of their profile, giving visitors a curated selection of content that represents their professional identity and achievements. This is a great way to highlight your best work, publications, projects, or any other content that you want to prominently display to those who visit your profile. It's a valuable tool for personal branding and presenting a well-rounded view of your expertise and accomplishments.

Why should you care?

As you can see in the image above, the featured section sits near the top of your LinkedIn profile, so it is one of the main sections that your LinkedIn profile visitors will naturally gravitate towards.

1. Attention Span: Users typically spend a few seconds scanning a profile before deciding whether to engage further. This makes the top section of a LinkedIn profile, including the featured section, crucial for grabbing attention quickly.
2. Visual Elements: Visual elements, such as images and videos, tend to attract more attention than text alone. Utilizing the featured section to display visually engaging content can encourage visitors to explore your profile further.
3. Professional Achievements: Visitors often look for indicators of your expertise and achievements early on. Highlighting notable accomplishments, publications, or projects in the featured section can immediately establish your credibility.
4. Diverse Content: A well-rounded featured section can showcase your versatility and expertise. Including a mix of posts, articles, videos, and other content can give visitors a comprehensive view of your capabilities.
5. Mobile Usage: Many LinkedIn users access the platform through mobile devices. Optimizing your featured section for mobile viewing ensures that your profile remains engaging and easy to navigate on smaller screens.

How to optimize videos for the featured section

Do you want to know how to customize the appearance of your featured section to captivate and convert your LinkedIn profile visitors? If yes, keep scrolling past the below gif (this is my current featured section and we will use it in the breakdown).

When it comes to the featured section, there are some particulars about LinkedIn's featured section. So if you're used to 'pinning' posts on other social media like Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn has its nuances, especially when it comes to highlighting video content.

There are 3 core elements of an attention grabbing featured section.

1. The thumbnail, the visual, or the preview. > in this case it is the animated GIF.
2. The written text
3. The method you choose to post your video content to the featured section (we will dissect this immediately).

To my knowledge, there are two ways you can attach videos to your featured section.

Step 1 > After clicking on the '+' button, you can choose between 'Add a post' or 'Add a link'. Select 'Add a link'. Don't bother clicking on 'Add media', you won't be able to add video media even though the call to action may be misleading.

What's the difference between 'Add a post' and 'Add a link'?

By selecting 'Add a link' you have the ability to customize the thumbnail. What is a thumbnail? A thumbnail is the visual preview of a post. And by the way, thumbnails are crucial and play a major factor in click rates (I'll make another article on the importance of thumbnails), but just trust me here (there are links to sources in comments below if you want to read up thumbnails and their impact on conversions).

Using my featured section as an example, the animated gif that is playing below acts like a thumbnail, or in this case, more of a preview. I really like adding a gif as it helps to grab the site visitor's attention.

Quick Tips > If you click on 'Add a post' you won't be able to replicate the animated gif as presented below. You may have also noticed Dubb immediately below the outcome statement.

You'll also need a video hosting solution, and the one that I have chosen is Dubb (I'll have a link in the comments section to all the tools and resources mentioned throughout this article).

Step 2 > Fill out the details

Link: Paste the link of where your video resides

Title: This is the text that will appear immediately below the animated video. For reference, mine is B2B SaaS added $1 Million to pipeline in 4 months

Description is not necessary

Thumbnail: In this case, you do not need to edit the thumbnail as the animated video gif (first 3 seconds of your video) will automatically be displayed as the thumbnail. This is the advantage of having a video hosting solution.

Remember that tool called Dubb? Make sure you upload the video in Dubb (or your preferred video hosting solution) with the dimensions of 1920 x 1080 (16:9 ratio). This is the recommended dimension for LinkedIn's featured section thumbnails. Look at the difference between the two gif thumbnails below. The one of the left is not optimized (that's because I filmed vertically with my smart phone, and uploaded a vertical 1080 x 1920 (9:16 ratio) to a format that supports 1920 x 1080 (16:9). The one of the right is optimized.

If your video is recorded horizontally then you can ignore the above paragraph.

But wait! What if you don't have a featured section? Here's how to enable the featured section on your LinkedIn profile.

Near the top right, click on Add profile section

Then select Add featured under Recommended