The days of LinkedIn acting solely as a job search engine are long gone. The professional platform has evolved into a multifaceted marketing tool that if used properly, provides the opportunity for sales and marketing professionals to enhance their online presence and boost their profile.
One of its latest offerings, a new cover story feature, allows users to include a 30-second vertical video on their profile page. While this new feature may seem intimidating, a LinkedIn cover story can quickly communicate the skills, experiences and personality of a company, professional or client, helping profiles to stand out among others.
Here are a few ways how those in sales and marketing can leverage the new video tool to build their personal brand and enhance the profiles of executives and professionals they may manage.
What’s In It for Marketers
With over 750 million LinkedIn users, it can be challenging as a marketer to build an online professional presence that is unique among others in a competing industry. However, with video, you can enhance your company’s or client’s branding by clearly communicating what makes them more noticeable among a broader audience. By creating a cover story, your profile can quickly grab the attention of your target audience—highlighting your distinct offerings and attributes.
In addition, leveraging this type of tool can assist marketers and sales professionals in demoing a company’s products and services in a quick and efficient manner, thus potentially increasing an audience’s understanding of the brand and its service offerings and further influencing current and potential clients or customers to become better acquainted with your businesses.
Cover stories are also a prime opportunity for marketers to explain complex topics in a simplified, visual way, helping followers bridge the gap between their needs and a company’s offerings. Whatever message you are aiming to communicate, LinkedIn’s new feature offers a unique way to capture the attention of your followers, leading to increased understanding, improved client relationships and enhanced brand recognition.
What You Should Include
A LinkedIn cover story can help you create a strong, positive first impression with your followers, but what should you include when you only have 30 seconds? This is an ideal opportunity to highlight the unique skills and offerings of your company or clients.
Marketers can leverage this platform and its offerings to advertise available services or job opportunities, enticing candidates or clients with flashy benefits and engaging videos highlighting the company’s culture, along with details as to why they should want to work with your company. Video allows you to reflect company culture more effectively than a traditional job posting, email or stagnant ad. At the end of the video, it’s beneficial to include a call to action, leading the potential candidate to the job posting, or a prospective client to the company website.
Sales and marketing professionals can also create a LinkedIn cover story video to help coworkers and clients get to know them on a more personal level. They can use this channel to show their personality, highlight their interests and spark conversations among their followers. Getting to know your co-workers and clients on a more personal level can further cultivate and create more positive work relationships, leading to an improved employee and client experience.
How to Make a LinkedIn Cover Story
LinkedIn’s new cover story feature is exclusive to the mobile version, so it does require users to download the LinkedIn app. To upload a video, click on your profile picture and click “add cover story”. From there, you can record a 30-second video with your camera, or you have the option to upload a pre-existing video.
If you’re uploading an existing video, be sure to export a 9:16 vertical aspect ratio to fit the platform’s guidelines and remember to keep the video under 30 seconds. It is beneficial to prioritize the visuals in the first three seconds of your video, as this section will be previewed on your profile. It’s important to be creative here and think through what would make someone click on your profile video to watch more. This is your chance to bring a more humanistic element to your profile and your professional career to life in a much more engaging way.
Creating an animated or mixed-media video can be a fun alternative to a selfie video for users who don’t necessarily want to show their face. Here is an excellent example of an animated cover story from Director of Customer Learning at Vyond, Michelle Miller.
A LinkedIn cover story is a great way to enhance your presence on LinkedIn and showcase your unique skills and personality. Utilizing this feature can help you to stand out among the crowd and can help your audience further understand who you are and the abilities you possess.
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