Here are three ideas for using video to turn your LinkedIn page into an engaging social destination for your audience.
1. Turn your boring resume-looking profile into an interactive marketing tool.
If your LinkedIn profile reads like an impressive resume, it might sell you to HR executives and recruiters. But it won’t do a good job connecting your brand with decision makers and influencers. Your prospects are not looking at your company’s profile because they want recruit you, but because they are considering doing business with you. Your profile should be designed to sell you and your organization’s products and solutions.
One way to do that is to tell a story. My profile, for example, highlights the difficulties I experienced as the director of creative services for International Paper when we needed to produce videos to explain things like the intricacies of antitrust regulation and printing technology. The problems videographers had communicating our message led me to create my own video marketing firm—a story I reinforce with a one-minute animated video illustrating my new company’s value proposition.
Another example is WebAttract President Michael Agron’s profile. He uses videos to describe his webinar management process, along with testimonial videos to back up the case studies highlighted there.
2. Generate more leads.
Now, with a strong LinkedIn profile foundation that’s filled with engaging videos, you and your sales/marketing team will attract more prospects. Now, you need to nourish those relationships until they become viable leads. Most people’s connections become “dead” connections if there is no initial interest. That’s why you need to create a LinkedIn community that’s alive with discussions based on your video content — 72% percent of senior executives research an organization after watching a B2B video marketing campaign, according to International Data Group)
To help you with your lead generation efforts, you should be sharing these discussions with other LinkedIn groups that your targeted audiences belong to as well. The discussions should then link to your videos, which should include a call-to-action to download your white paper, webinar, ebook or other value-added offering so you can capture leads.
3. Improve your outreach efforts.
At some point you’ll want to take your LinkedIn conversations offline (i.e. out of LinkedIn and into a more personal and interactive connection — phone, a video chat, Google hangout, or whatever works for you). Before you do that, it’s a good idea to provide additional material your prospect can watch or read before the call. I know of an organization that provides prospects with an ebook to read before there is a phone conversation. If that organization gets the prospect to read at least 30 pages, there is an 80% chance of a conversion.
Videos such as customer testimonials and short product demos can work in this context as well. By providing this additional information, you will improve engagement, increase your prospect’s comfort level with you as a vendor, and make the conversation flow more smoothly. Your prospect will begin to visualize how they might work with you before they even speak to you.
Bruce McKenzie is the founder of 2-Minute Explainer.
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