The Next Big Thing For LinkedIn

by John Nemo July 17, 2016

July 17, 2016

Discover the next new, big feature LinkedIn has up its sleeve – and how it could open up countless new opportunities for you as a result.

The Next Big Thing For LinkedIn

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner recently said something quite revealing when announcing the big news that Microsoft had purchased LinkedIn for $ 26.2 billion.

“Imagine a world where we’re no longer looking up at Tech Titans such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook, and wondering what it would be like to operate at their extraordinary scale,” Weiner wrote on his LinkedIn blog. “Because we’re one of them.”

Indeed, LinkedIn now has its very own seat at the “big kids” table when it comes to social media networks and tech companies.

What LinkedIn Has Up Its Sleeve

With what amounts to an open checkbook and countless new toys (Microsoft-owned products, software platforms and endless integration possibilities) to play with, LinkedIn is poised to implement some massive changes on the network.

However, there is one particular feature that I’m most excited about, especially after what I heard from a LinkedIn insider about its potential on the platform.

“I’m excited for us to crack the code on video,” Alex Rynne, who serves as the online and social media voice for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, told me in a recent podcast interview. “We have some pretty top secret video projects in the works that I can’t talk about, but I’m really excited about what’s coming.”

She went on to say this: “I feel that the ‘Play’ button on a video is the most compelling Call To Action (CTA) on the web right now. I want to figure out how to harness that even further.”

LinkedIn has already made significant strides with video, allowing videos you share in its newsfeed to auto-play, along with making it easy to embed and share videos from YouTube, Vimeo and other third party providers on your profile page, inside blog posts and elsewhere on the platform.

What LinkedIn’s Video Revolution is Going to Look Like

Rynne isn’t saying, but I won’t be shocked one bit if LinkedIn introduces several new types of video features in the near future.

For starters, I’m betting we’ll see “native” video functionality, similar to what Facebook has done on its platform. “Native” video means you’ll be able to upload a video clip directly from your mobile device or computer directly onto LinkedIn, instead of having to first upload it to a third-party service such as YouTube or Vimeo.

Native video is brilliant business, because by hosting and streaming exclusive videos directly on its site, LinkedIn keeps you (and your audience) off YouTube and Vimeo and on its platform instead.

Given that more than half its users access LinkedIn via its mobile app, it only makes sense that we’ll see major upgrades/improvements with all the LinkedIn mobile apps and their ability to upload, share and consume native video content on the site.

I also believe we’ll see all of LinkedIn’s “native” video “looping” over and over, similar to what Facebook’s native video does right now.

Video Calls Right Inside LinkedIn – Coming Soon?

Also, I think it’s only a matter of time until LinkedIn and Microsoft-owned Skype integrate, allowing you to schedule and execute video calls and live chats with your professional network of connections from right inside of LinkedIn.

That opens up the door to live group video calls, live video trainings and webinars … see where all this is heading?

As I’ve noted before, LinkedIn is on a serious mission to have a hand in nearly every aspect of your professional life online.

Its next big move, I believe, will revolve around the power of online video, which is easier than ever to create, produce, consume and share.

That, combined with LinkedIn’s powerful new relationship with Microsoft, is why I’m confident the next big revolution over at the world’s largest social network for professionals will indeed be televised.

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