LinkedIn Doubles Downs on Video ▶️

With video watch time up 36% year over year, LinkedIn rolls out a handful of video updates for creators.

Author

Lindsey Gamble
February 06, 2025

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TODAY’S EDITION

  • LinkedIn unveils new video tools to boost discovery, engagement, and analytics for creators.

  • Instagram previews its CapCut competitor with a sneak peek at some of the key features for Edits.

  • Threads pushes for curated discovery with custom feed sharing.

  • YouTube expands its Communities feature to more creators.

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DEEP DIVE

LinkedIn Rolls Out New Tools to Improve Video Discovery, Engagement, and Analytics

LinkedIn / Profile Preview & Average Watch Time

Back in the fall, I said that LinkedIn video was the best opportunity across all of social media and I’m doubling down on that.

Fresh off announcing a 36% more year-over-year increase in video views on LinkedIn and video creation growing at 2x the rate of other original post formats, LinkedIn unveiled a handful of product updates for video.

  • Desktop Video Experiences: The full-screen video experience and the "Videos for You" carousel are now available on desktop. In the full-screen experience, users can navigate to the next and previous video vertically using up and down arrows.

  • Videos in Search: When users search for topics, they will now see relevant videos in a swipeable carousel.

  • Profile Preview within Full-Screen Video Player: Viewers can see a snapshot of a profile from the video player, showcasing other videos they've shared, with a button to follow and visit their full profile.

  • Video Follow Enhancement: The follow button within the full-screen video player is now more prominent.

  • Average Watch Time: A new metric that highlights the average time users watched a specific video.

What It Means for Creators

LinkedIn’s video updates reinforce the platform’s commitment to making video content a central part of its user experience.

By expanding its dedicated mobile video experience to desktop, LinkedIn now provides a new way for users to watch videos, including users who typically engage with LinkedIn on desktop during work hours. This should drive even more video viewership.

Incorporating video into search results improves discoverability and aligns with the growing trend of social media becoming go-to search engines, especially for younger audiences. Given that Gen Z is LinkedIn’s fastest-growing demographic, this caters to them while creating more opportunities for creators to tailor videos to popular search keywords or common user queries.

One challenge with short-form video feeds is the flood of content from various creators. While this can boost views, it often creates a barrier to meaningful connections between creators and viewers. The profile preview feature, paired with a more prominent follow button, gives viewers context about the creator and provides a stronger call to action, helping convert more viewers into followers.

The introduction of Average Watch Time expands LinkedIn’s suite of video metrics, giving creators valuable insights into how well their content resonates and how it compares to other short-form video experiences. For example, creators can align video length with their average watch time to increase completion rates or place brand messaging earlier in sponsored videos.

Will This Attract TikTok Creators?

LinkedIn’s video updates come at a key time. While it may not be the first platform TikTok creators consider, it should definitely be on their radar, especially for business or professional-related content. And it doesn’t have to be the typical corporate-style videos. “Day in the life” content that blends personal and professional experiences has also performed well on the platform.

Go Deeper on LinkedIn

For more on LinkedIn’s rise as a platform for creators, here are some of my previous pieces:

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NEWS, TRENDS & INSIGHTS

Threads / Custom Feed Sharing

Instagram Gives a Sneak Peek at Features of Edits

Instagram previewed key features of its upcoming video editing app, Edits:

  • Stacked Timeline: Arrange and adjust clips with precision.

  • Image to Video: Turn static images into dynamic videos using AI.

  • Captions: Automatically generate captions in multiple languages.

  • Camera: A native camera with features like touch-up, green screen, music, timer, and countdown for high-quality video capture.

  • Collaboration: Invite others to collaborate, view creations, and share feedback.

Why It Matters: For creators frustrated with CapCut’s recent changes such as paywalling previously free features like captions and cancelling subscriptions, Edits could be a promising free alternative. While it may not match CapCut’s full feature set at launch, it’s likely to offer enough functionality to create videos optimized for today’s mobile-first social media feeds.

Related: Instagram also just rolled out a native text tool for adding text to Reels covers.

Threads Adds the Ability to Share Custom Feeds

After being spotted over the weekend, Threads has officially announced the ability for users to share custom feeds. Users can now make their feeds public and share them via posts and DMs. These feeds will also appear on user profiles through a new Feeds tab.

Why It Matters: The ability to share these feeds makes it easier for communities to form around specific interests and engage in real-time conversations, like the Recording Academy’s Grammy Awards feed. With the expansion of Profile Collections too, Threads is betting on user-driven curation alongside its algorithmic feeds to improve content discovery.

YouTube Rolls Out Communities to More Creators

YouTube is expanding access to Communities, a dedicated space for creators and fans to interact, following months of testing. Eligible creators will receive invitations via email and mobile banners on their Channel Pages to enable the feature.

Additionally, YouTube is renaming the Community tab to Posts to reduce confusion.

Why It Matters: Communities give creators a native way to engage with their audiences, reducing the need for third-party platforms like Discord, Patreon, or Circle. By hosting these interactions directly alongside content, YouTube adds convenience and keeps viewers within its ecosystem, strengthening creator-fan connections.

YouTube Adds New Insights for Watch Time Across Devices

YouTube has added a new Device Type card in YouTube Studio. This report highlights the percentage of watch time coming from each device: mobile, computer, TV, and tablet. Creators can also filter the data by content type (Videos, Shorts, Lives).

Why It Matters: This feature helps creators understand where their audience is watching, which is especially relevant as TV viewership continues to rise. YouTube reports that viewers stream over 1 billion hours of content daily on TVs, and the number of top creators who get the majority of their watch time from TVs has surged by more than 400%. Additionally, the number of creators earning the majority of their revenue from TV viewership is up 30% year over year.

With these insights, creators can optimize content for specific devices. For example, if Shorts are getting significant watch time on TVs, it might signal the need to upgrade video quality for a better big-screen experience.

QUICK HITS

YouTube has over 250,000 creators in its YouTube Shopping program in the US and Korea. Between TikTok Shop’s growth and high M&A activity around performance-focused influencer marketing, look for YouTube’s creator commerce efforts to pick up. 

LinkedIn added Where You Appeared to Profile Appearances analytics. It shows the percentage breakdown of where a user’s name appear across the platform (Posts, Network Recommendations, Search, and Comments). This insight can help users understand which surfaces provide the most visibility.

LinkedIn has updated the share menu with a ‘Contribute Expertise’ button. Tapping it generates a pop-up with a list of Collaborative Articles to respond to. Despite sunsetting the Top Community Voices badge, Collaborative Articles still seem to be of interest for LinkedIn.

Google opened up registrations for its new .channel domain. The unique domain is designed for creators and publishers to host digital storefronts with creative branding.

Apple launched Invites, a new app for creating and sending invitations. Integrated with other apps like Maps and Weather, users can customize their invites and include Shared Albums and collaborative playlists. With this move, Apple joins Facebook in competing with Gen Z favorite, Partiful.

TurboTax shared tax tips for creators. Topics include which forms to expect, when taxes are due on gifts, how to report taxable income, and what can be expensed. It provides a high-level overview of what creators can expect this tax season.

WHAT I’M READING & WATCHING

Alexander Lee dives into LinkedIn’s Average Watch Time metric, featuring insights from LinkedIn’s VP of Product, Gyanda Sachdeva, on its development and value for creators.

YouTube’s Senior Director of Growth & Discovery, Todd Beaupré, sits down with Creator Liaison, Rene Ritchie, to break down how YouTube’s algorithm works.

BuzzFeed is reportedly considering building its own social media platform as an alternative for users who feel alienated by shifts on big tech platforms like Meta and X.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel joins Colin & Samir to talk about dealing with platforms copying Snapchat, Stories versus Spotlight, and more.

THANK YOU

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