My Top 5 Tips for Your First LinkedIn Video (Part 1)

So you have seen a lot of people creating content on Linkedin, posting videos and getting huge engagement and you are thinking: "Surely it's not that hard to do."

But when you go to record a video, you don't know where to start or your mind goes blank.

I was in the same boat. It took a coach to push me forward and believed in me (shout out to Ruby Lee!) to post my first video on LinkedIn nearly 6 months ago and then another few months before I had the confidence and determination to do a #90dayschallenge (you can find the highlights from that challenge here).

But if you are ready to bite the bullet and do it afraid anyway, here's are the first few things I'd suggest in terms of preparing for your first Linkedin video:

1) KNOW YOUR WHY

This is key with anything - business, life, career choices. You need to ask yourself, "Why do I want to post a video on LinkedIn?" Is it to build more connections, change your brand, get more sales, become known as an expert in my field.

For me, LinkedIn content creation was about building my personal brand, shining light on me not just as a lawyer but as a multi-passionate creative and early stage entrepreneur. It wasn't about "selling" for me so it's no surprise that I didn't get any sales from my first 90 days of intentional LinkedIn content creation. What I did gain was a shift in perception - I am now known as #thatlawyerwholetters and I was humbled to be included in Shanee Moret’s 51 Creators You Need to Follow on Linkedin Now published on 11 December 2018.

Work out your why as that should be "linked in" to everything you create.

2) ADD VALUE

How many times have you watched a video and thought - what's the point of this?

Have a purpose behind your videos. Think about how you are serving others, how am I adding value to their lives, to their businesses, to their outlook in life.

I have to admit when I was doing my 90 days challenge, it was hard sometimes to create things that I thought would add value (sometimes it was just documenting the fact I had nothing to say and that's ok sometimes) but this time round, I'm all about how can I best serve the LinkedIn community.

And if your "WHY" is to sell and to get sales - switch the narrative and think about your customer and how best you can help them and go from there. Perhaps even ask questions of the community: "What do you need most help with now in X?"

3) KEEP VIDEOS SHORT

Honestly, when I see videos in my feed, one of the first (sometimes unconscious) things I do is see how long the video is going to take. Anything longer than 2 minutes, I usually will skip or I will watch the first 2 minutes of a video and then flick on to the next one... why? Because I think like most people in my generation and the society at large, we have short attention spans.

Having said that, my first video in the 90 days challenge was 6+ minutes but I felt like that was important as I needed to explain the premise of why I was doing the LinkedIn challenge.

Lesson: If the message is worthwhile, the video perhaps can go longer - just be prepared that some of your audience may tune out after 2 minutes so get your main points across succinctly and where possible, keep the videos short.

So in the spirit of keeping things short, I'm going to leave this article here and share the last of my Top 5 Tips in my next article (hopefully will be out later this week).

For daily business tips, you can follow my Instagram stories on my small business Instagram account, www.instagram.com/art.by.ames

If this article has helped you in anyway, I'd love to hear from you in the comments or if you post your first LinkedIn video as a result of this article, please tag me in it and I'd love to support you and cheer you on!

-- Amy