For small businesses, one of the main goals of building a social media presence is to connect with customers and build relationships with them. To this end, LinkedIn is the perfect platform. LinkedIn is great for expanding your professional network, appealing to potential employees and clients and building your online credibility.

Many small and medium-sized businesses are unaware that video content can boost their LinkedIn presences exponentially. To create quality LinkedIn videos, your business needs to develop a marketing strategy, as well as invest in the right tools. The following 6 tips will help your business make the most of LinkedIn by creating standout video content.

1. Choose your objective

First, stop and think. What do you want to achieve with your video content? Do you want to attract new clients or talent by sharing your expertise on a specific topic? Maybe you want to network with other companies. Your objective and your video content should go hand in hand, so it’s best to determine your video objectives early on in the process.

2. Plan out your video content

A video without a plan will likely not meet the objective that you set out initially. To create your video plan, gather your team together and brainstorm content ideas. Some content ideas to consider include:

• Interviewing industry leaders
• Promoting blog content
• Sharing news about your business
• Creating a listicle video, discussing top tips from your topic of expertise
• A behind the scenes video of your business

Once you’ve selected your video topic(s), create a content calendar and fine-tune your strategy. For practical tips on creating a social media strategy, check out our guide here.

With a strong video marketing plan in place, you will ensure that your content is compelling and relevant to your audience. Your content will also position you as an expert in your field – thereby increasing your chance at gaining more leads for your business.

3. Choose the right video creation tool

If your plan is to create videos in-house, check out Boosted, our LinkedIn video maker app that enables you to create professionally-designed videos, in minutes. You can use your own footage or select stock footage, and then add text and other elements to customize. It’s free to download and use (you can upgrade to access all video templates), which is always a plus for any small business looking to expand their reach.

Here’s an example of the type of video content you can create with Boosted’s video maker:

4. Optimize your content

Dream of creating a LinkedIn video for your small business that will ‘break the internet’ and go viral overnight? Then you need to make sure that your video is optimized correctly. Here are some practical tips:

• Keep you content short, yet impactful. Try to keep videos under 90 seconds long; with 60 seconds being ultimate goal.
• Use an eye-catching thumbnail and pick an on-point title and description.
• Make the most of subtitles – don’t give your audience a reason to not watch your video simply because they don’t want to listen to it! Subtitles will ensure that your audience can watch the video from wherever they are in silence.
• Check to see that your at content is optimized for mobile use too! This is how the vast majority of your content will be consumed, so don’t neglect this.
• Splitting your video content into sections or chapters to make it both easier as well as more desirable for your audience to watch.

5. Be timely

Ultimately, the success of your video comes down to when you post the content. Conduct market research to discover when your audience is most likely to be online, and make sure that you schedule your content according to your findings. Posting consistently at a particular time of day will help boost your engagement.

Check out our guide When Is the Best Time to Post Video on LinkedIn? for more best-practices.

6. Promote your content

Once you have posted your video content, don’t simply wait for your audience to stumble upon it! Spread the word on your other social media sites and send out emails to notify people that your latest video is live.

Want to take this to the next level? If your budget allows, you could always take advantage of the paid LinkedIn feature, InMail. It allows you to contact anyone on LinkedIn directly and gain 3x more responses than traditional email lists alone.

By implementing these 6 LinkedIn video marketing tips , you’ll be able grow your small business’ social presence, increase engagement and gain more leads!