Welcome to a new episode of the podcast.

After a very busy week, I’m relieved to get a day in the office and it feels great to be back in front of my microphone!

A couple of weeks ago I had a very interesting conversation with an experienced LinkedIn user about native video posts. They post regularly and get fantastic results but they have yet to do a video post. When I asked them why they couldn’t really answer. We explored this in more detail and agreed that it came down to two main factors;

1. Technical barriers
2. Concerned that others would think they look stupid

This troubled me but I put it down to an isolated experience, then last week I had almost exactly the same conversation with someone else! The final straw came this week when I delivered a follow-up training session and during my preparation (where I analyse the delegates activity since the last session) I discovered that, despite plenty of text and image posts, nobody had attempted a native video post.

I have covered video before but given the issues people seem to be having, I thought I would focus on this in this weeks episode.

But first…..

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

• LinkedIn Top Startups 2018: The 25 most sought-after startups in the UK
• Automated Fake Account Detection at LinkedIn
• The man who’d like to add you to his network (Sorry this is a subscription site – The Times still believe we should pay for content – despite plastering their page with ads!)
• Improving the Quality of Clicks on Your LinkedIn Sponsored Content

Listener Feedback

I’m so glad Karen brought this up.

The best way to find an episode by number is to type the url https://linkedinformed.com/episodexxx (replace the x’s with the number you want)

If you want to search by topic, there is a keyword search on the top right of any episode page plus you can see a whole list of episode ‘categories’ in the right-hand column which cover most subjects.

New LinkedIn Features

The first change this week is not a good one I’m afraid. If you are using Boolean strings to search then you will now find the amount of operators are now restricted – this is mainly an issue for the OR commend. Here is the post I refer to;

On a more positive note, this week saw the introduction of Groups back into the main LinkedIn experience. Not as a main menu but in the left panel under ‘communities’ and your groups can also be found in ‘My network’

Groups link in the left panel of the home page

You can also find a link to groups in ‘My Network’

LinkedIn Video

Here are the slides I used at the LinkedInLocal event in Manchester this week.

I believe the key factors in removing any perceived technical barriers are to use mobile apps to record and edit your video. Only use the LinkedIn app to post, not record.

I’m a big fan of Clips because it allows me to add subtitles/captions to my talking head videos (essential) and easily make ‘moving images’ type videos. It’s a free app but only available to iPhone users. VivaVideo is a decent option for Android users but it doesn’t do captions (there doesn’t appear to be an Android app that does.

As for the issue of looking stupid, by editing before posting you can ensure you are happy first but it’s inevitable that you will be uncomfortable watching yourself. So long as you have been authentic and genuine, kept the length to less than 3 mins, you can’t really go wrong.

Why not give it try?

Tell us about your experience with LinkedIn video?

That’s all for this week. Have a great week and I will catch up with you again next week.