Pinterest and LinkedIn are the two biggest platforms who can offer influencers alternative to the leading and crowded video platforms.
While in a sabbatical year of work, Goldie Chan began taking videos of herself walking and talking about different topics, from the magical world of Harry Potter to shared travel and marketing, which she posted on LinkedIn.
The daily videos she shot on her smartphone helped her accumulate more than 4 million views and approximately 50,000 followers on the social network for professionals since 2017.
"I am not creating these [videos] for fun, for no reason; there are always [involved] learning," said Chan, who has since launched his social media strategy agency called Warm Robots. "When I was starting, my friends and coworkers said I should be on Instagram or YouTube. However, LinkedIn turned out to be a perfect option. It's fun to create something new."
There's an emerging group of creators, known as influencers on social networks, who are taking advantage of the LinkedIn's recent drive towards the original and live video.
VidCon, Now in its tenth year, brings together social media stars, their followers, brands, and major platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. Companies like LinkedIn and Pinterest were presented this year as places where video creators can also thrive.
Social media stars usually emerge on YouTube, where they can earn money directly from the ads in their videos, or on Instagram, a platform known for sponsored content offerings. However, on LinkedIn and Pinterest, the aspiring influencers can stand out and differentiate themselves because there is much less noise.
In 2017, LinkedIn launched the video posts and recentely it also launched the live streaming, called LinkedIn Live.
"The creators are essential to us," said Peter Roybal, head of LinkedIn video production management. "It's a place where you can excel. The video is newer [on LinkedIn] for people's feeds. It's still in the early days of people who discover live videos in their feeds, so it jumps."
Pinterest, which allows you to bookmark images from the Internet, has also focused on video in recent years. For a long time, Pinterest enabled users to share videos from external places such as YouTube and Vimeo for many years, it didn't introduce its video player until as late as 2016. Recently, the platform introduced new tools, including a video tab about creator and business profiles. They also launched tools to help users to create their original videos and to publish them on the platform.
"On Pinterest, you are committed to the ideas of the creator and the recommendations and suggestions of the experts," said Enid Hwang, community and culture manager for Pinterest. "Many of those ideas are best presented on a video."
Sarah Khandjian, who manages a lifestyle and DIY blog and a Pinterest account called Sarah Hearts, began making videos in November 2018 for Pinterest to help increase her followers.
"It's still early on the platform for the video," he said. "There aren't many video creators on Pinterest, so it is more likely that the platform promotes your video because it is a smaller playground."
Khandjian said that another great advantage for creators on Pinterest is that its content, including the video, can remain relevant and bring views for years.
"The content lives much longer on Pinterest than on other social networking sites," he said. "The content of the holidays I created two or three years ago for July 4, suddenly there was much traffic again this year [as people look for ideas]."
Although Pinterest and LinkedIn are not the biggest names in the online video, they still have enormous audiences. LinkedIn has a global user base of 645 million members, while Pinterest has more than 250 million monthly users.
"Great players like Instagram and Facebook are already capitalizing on the videos and have been doing it for years," he said. "Maybe it's the saturation or the fatigue of the audience, but possibly LinkedIn and Pinterest can take the behaviors of users on other platforms and make it successful for their users.
Pinterest themes about lifestyle, beauty, travel, fashion, and home decor are the ones that work best. "For a lot of verticals where it makes sense, there is a huge opportunity. For some influencers, it clear that Instagram and YouTube are too loud, while Pinterest could help.
Based on the story by CNN Business.