Whoa—Has LinkedIn Finally Gotten On Board with Live Video?

Video has always been a powerful medium to deliver information and commentary. Why? That’s simple. It’s easy to digest, appeals to our visual nature, entertains, and is quickly and easily consumable on our ubiquitous mobile devices. Live streaming on sites like YouTube and Facebook have taken off in big ways and have tremendous appeal yet one major social media platform has lagged behind in the adoption of video—and that’s LinkedIn.

Well, that’s changing. The largest business social networking site has been making some transformative changes lately, shifting its previously buttoned-up approach to networking to a more open model that includes social sharing and lead generation (i.e., the Elevate offering). Now, LinkedIn is integrating video capabilities in an effort to capture more of its audience’s attention and likely create more stickiness for the site—enticing users to stay around longer.

Note that LinkedIn’s video feature isn’t live streaming, and it also isn’t available to just anyone with login credentials. These short, 30-seconds-or-less video spots can be created by the 500 LinkedIn influencers only—in other words, those with expertise and a strong social following on the site. Influencers use an app to record the segments, answering questions and engaging with their respective audiences through comments, etc. Similar to YouTube, videos are suggested based on what’s been previously viewed, bringing a host of perspectives around a single topic front and center in sharable, visual chunks.

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of influencer marketing, and LinkedIn’s jump into video is just further proof that reach, credibility, and real voices still matter. Overall, this shift is great news, not just for influencers, but also for anyone who regularly uses LinkedIn—and it’s only the beginning. LinkedIn tends to start new programs with influencers, then roll those programs out to the masses, so this is likely not too far in the future for the reason of the LinkedIn crowd.

What can you expect from the videos, and how can you use them to get the most out of LinkedIn? Autumn Rivers, editor at our sister site, The Marketing Scope, delivers the scoop for you here: LinkedIn Now Lets Influencers Upload Short Videos to the Site

Autumn Rivers is Editor at The Marketing Scope and Owner of Autumn Editing & Writing. You can follower her on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn.

photo credit: How Companies Can Use LinkedIn for Marketing via photopin (license)