How to Post Effective and Engaging Video on LinkedIn

How Trust Relates to the New Importance of Video on LinkedIn

The definition of trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. The word trust has in its meaning the idea of “faithfulness”, that when we “trust” something or someone, we place our faith in them. They, in turn, must make good on the faith with which we have entrusted them.

People routinely “trust” one another. We trust that the other cars will stop when they see a red light. We trust that a doctor will deliver the truth to us. We trust that good business advice can be found from a community of peers in a classroom. And, we trust that our peers and colleagues on LinkedIn will make and share content that is relevant, authentic, and trustworthy.

It has become en vogue to share personal stories about professional development on LinkedIn even when you don’t have something polished to share. But, you run the risk of losing faith with your audience when they see something that “breaks their trust,” especially when it is of poor quality or sloppy.

The Importance of a Great Video on LinkedIn

The reason this is so important is that we have such a short window of time to earn trust, especially when making a video. By the time a video hits 10, 20, or 30 seconds, your viewer has decided already whether or not they will ever again in their life click on one of your videos in the future. Or, they will be privately classifying mentally whether the video should be put in the “serious” column, the “interesting” column, the “thought-provoking” column, or the “well there was no other video to watch column”. Each of us viewers is ranking video and the presenter on the video for future reference.

And, that’s good and probably how it should be. That’s why it’s so important for people to share material that is thoughtful, interesting, and useful to viewers. Viewers trust you with their most valuable resource: their TIME! When you break their trust, whether they even realize it themselves as a viewer or not, you have broken their faith, their trust, and wasted their time. You are building trust through your videos. And, there are risks.

Someone posted once a selfie-shot video on LinkedIn where he shouted about staying the course and staying focused. He did a lot of yelling and a lot of talking about how important it was for him to look out for his own interests and not care about helping others. Ironically, the place where he started walking when doing the video was the same place he ended up when he was finished. He went in a circle and that attracted several viewers’ attention, especially since he was talking about keeping your eyes straight ahead.

Important Takeaway about Video on LinkedIn

The most important takeaway about the development of professional video on LinkedIn is that if you are interested in doing these types of short personal development videos, it is important to put in the time to make it exceptional each time so that your audience begins to trust you. Otherwise, you run the risk of breaking your viewers’ trust just by posting a video you thought was going to attract attention. It may attract attention, but it can at the same time damage your ability to gain the trust of your audience in the future.

All this can come just from hitting the play button.