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It’s National Violin Day, Reader... What’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle? Pretty much in how you play it.

In today’s edition:

• Today's Tip of the Day is for marketing strategy

• 🤳 LinkedIn video content strategy

• LinkedIn creative trends insights

• Saving Snapchats for 7 days

• 🗞️ Additional industry news from ChatGPT, YouTube, and more

Want to improve your conversion rates? Does your marketing adequately address your customers' objections and pain points?

The 4 Categories of Customer Pain Points

Understanding customer pain points allows you to make informed decisions to improve the customer journey and to address them in your marketing proactively. There are different types of customer pain points:

• "Financial: When a product or service is perceived as too expensive or lacking in value for the cost.

• Product/Service: Issues related to the performance, quality, or reliability of the product or service.

• Process: Difficulties encountered during the purchasing journey include a complicated checkout process or slow response times.

• Support: Lack of helpful, timely customer support or difficulty finding solutions."

As you encounter objections rooted in these pain points, note where they appear most often in your customer journey. Then, you can adjust your marketing messages to present solutions before they stop consumers from converting.

Today's tip was inspired by Brooke B. Sellas, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

You Won’t Find This Anywhere Else… 

Here are 3 reasons to get your All-Access ticket to Social Media Marketing World TODAY, Reader:

1️⃣ World-class training for a needed marketing boost

2️⃣ Meet other marketers who are on a similar journey

3️⃣ Discover your marketing roadmap for 2025 and beyond

“I have not had as much of a wake-up call as I got from attending Social Media Marketing World. I have taken home some amazing perspectives and elements that can be incorporated into any business I work for,” said attendee Samantha Pepin.

I’m ready to discover what I’ve been missing.

Mastering LinkedIn Video to Attract the Right Audience

Are you neglecting LinkedIn in your video marketing strategy? Curious about how different video formats can help you reach and engage your target audience?

In this article, we'll explore how to attract your ideal audience with LinkedIn video.

Your LinkedIn Video Formats

LinkedIn offers three types of video content, each serving unique purposes and reaching different audiences. Understanding the nuances of each format is crucial for developing an effective video strategy.

Feed video posts are LinkedIn's original video format and remain a powerful tool for both personal profiles and company pages. Feed videos appear in the regular feed and are cataloged under the video tab in your activity section for easy access. They can be up to fifteen minutes long and support horizontal, vertical, or square orientations.

LinkedIn's newest video format is short videos. The recommended length is 45 seconds to 2 minutes, and they perform best in a vertical orientation. The distribution model differs significantly from feed videos, with the algorithm favoring professional, high-quality videos that provide concise, actionable business-related value.

A recent update showcases these short-form videos in the regular feed, expanding their visibility. Since videos play silently in the feed shelf, you'll need captions and visual elements like text headers near your head at the start of videos to draw your audience's attention.

LinkedIn Live is the most underutilized video format even though it's proven to be an effective way for profiles and pages to build email lists and convert connections into clients. After the event ends, the video remains available on your profile under the Events tab in your activity section. Some marketers trim these replays to show just the first few seconds to maintain exclusivity for live attendees, while others make the entire video available as valuable long-term content.

Where Should You Start?

Most markers should start with ten short videos. The exception is highly technical videos that require a screen share—in these cases, traditional feed videos are likely more appropriate.

Next, identify your top three short-form videos to form the basis for your feed videos and your first three live events. This ensures you're building on proven content themes.

Sequence Your Video Content Strategically: The Hamburger Method

First, create a video that resonates with your audience but isn't directly related to your product or service. For example, if you're a marketing strategist, your video could be about creator burnout.

Next, share a video directly related to your offer. For example, you could follow your first video with one about growing your email list with LinkedIn newsletters.

Finally, post another indirectly related but valuable video. For example, you could address adjacent challenges your audience faces, such as how to generate inbound clients without depending on referrals.

3 LinkedIn Video Content Strategy Scenarios

For personal brands, focus on showing your expertise and personality through:

• Direct-to-camera educational content

• Behind-the-scenes glimpses of your work

• Live Q&A sessions

• Response videos to common client questions

For LinkedIn company pages, successful approaches include:

• Company event coverage

• Team member spotlights

• Product demonstrations

• Behind-the-scenes content

• Snippets from company podcasts or meetings

• CEO updates and announcements about company news

If you're managing content but don't want to be the face of your marketing, these alternatives don't involve you being on camera:

• Capture company events and culture

• Create screen-recording tutorials

• Feature willing team members

• Share customer success stories

• Document product or service demonstrations

Pro Tip: Contrary to what many might expect, Moret has found that longer text descriptions correlate with better video performance. Her most successful videos often feature comprehensive text accompaniment. She recommends transcribing your video content into the post description and then formatting it carefully for readability.

Assessing LinkedIn Video Performance

Success metrics vary by video type, so don't be discouraged by different patterns of interaction between feed videos and short-form content. Instead, look beyond simple engagement metrics to determine whether your LinkedIn marketing is bringing you closer to your business goals.

For feed videos, track which topics generate the most meaningful discussions and note which videos drive connection requests.

For short videos, look for profile visits and track which topics drive the most profile visits.

For live event videos, monitor conversion rates for consultations or email sign-ups.

Other KPIs to consider are profile visits, connection requests, and direct message inquiries from viewers.

Today's advice is provided with insights from Shanee Moret, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

Social Media Marketing World Comes to You! 

Attending Social Media Marketing World in person is the best way to experience the conference. But sometimes travel just isn’t an option. 

With a Virtual ticket, you can stream all the keynotes and sessions live. Plus, you’ll get access to the recordings of every keynote, session, and workshop. It's the next best thing to being in San Diego.

“My eyes are sore as I have watched way too many sessions today! All awesome stuff. It's like Netflix… just one more,” said Julia Doherty.

Isn’t it time you experienced the life-changing content from Social Media Marketing World?

I’m ready to attend virtually!

ChatGPT Rolls Out Advanced Voice Mode: OpenAI has launched real time video capabilities for ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode, allowing Plus, Team, and Pro subscribers to receive AI responses while pointing their phone cameras at objects or sharing their screens. The rollout begins December 12, 2024, but excludes ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu subscribers until January 2025. EU, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein users won't have access for an unspecified period. Additionally, OpenAI has introduced "Santa Mode," adding Santa's voice as a preset option in ChatGPT, accessible via a snowflake icon in the app. Source: TechCrunch

Gemini Updates Announced: Deep Research is a premium feature exclusive to Gemini Advanced subscribers who pay $20 monthly. This tool generates comprehensive research reports using advanced reasoning capabilities and creates multi-step research plans. The feature analyzes information across the web and includes source links in its reports. Deep Research is only available in English on desktop and mobile web browsers, with a mobile app release scheduled for early 2025. Gemini 2.0 Flash is being released to all users as an experimental chat-optimized version, with the full version set to launch in January. This update promises improved performance and faster response times across various tasks. During its experimental phase, some features will be incompatible with the model. Like Deep Research, 2.0 Flash is currently limited to desktop and mobile web platforms. Source: TechCrunch

LinkedIn's 2024 Creative Trends Analysis: The report, based on research across 13.6K assets and 2.9B impressions, reveals the creative performing well for LinkedIn businesses. AI-related messaging that focuses on practical business outcomes, such as "future-proofing," increased conversions by 748%, while "digital transformation" messaging lifted performance by 34%; Content showing casual elements like non-formal clothing increased video completion rates by 37%, while expressions of frustration and confusion lifted performance by 59% and 21% respectively; Using high-contrast visuals improved video completion rates by 68% and static engagement by 41%. Pink drove a 26% increase in view-through rates, offering differentiation on the traditionally blue-dominated platform. For tech brands, neutral backgrounds with clear text contrast improved click-through rates by 15%. Source: LinkedIn

2024 Google Search Trends: The search platform released its year-end report about the past year's most searched trends and topics. Notably, people increasingly used Google Lens and Circle to search for information, translate languages, shop, and identify objects. Source: Google

Snapchat Chat Saves: The platform announced that users can save messages for up to seven days. Source: Snap

TikTok Ban in Canada: TikTok's Canadian division is challenging the government's shutdown order through an emergency court filing. The company seeks either a complete reversal of the order or to have it returned to the government for review with court guidance. The motion was filed with Canada's Federal Court on December 5, citing concerns about the national security-based shutdown mandate. Source: Reuters

YouTube TV Cost: The platform announced a hike in its Base Plan's monthly price to $82.99, effective December 12, 2024. Source: YouTube

YouTube TV Views: YouTube's TV platform saw significant growth and feature updates in 2024. Users globally streamed over 1 billion hours of content daily on TVs. Podcast consumption reached 400M monthly hours on living room devices, with creators like Bailey Sarian blending audio content with visual elements. Creator content quality improved, with 4K video uploads increasing 35% year-over-year. Creators earning most of their revenue from TV grew by 30%. A new TV-optimized subscribe button increased subscriptions by 40%. Source: YouTube

Did You Know?

The sound of a lightsaber hum is the sound of a film projector motor with the feedback from a television set, created by sound designer Ben Burtt.