I built my brand on vertical video. Here's why I'm hitting pause.
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As much as it pains me to say this… I’m pressing pause on vertical video on LinkedIn. The keyword here is “vertical.” For the time being, I’m going ONLY to post landscape videos for LinkedIn. And yeah, this is a big deal for me. I built my ENTIRE brand and business doing vertical video on LinkedIn. So why am I doing this? Unfortunately, LinkedIn has some serious UX problems with vertical video. Let me explain… First, let me show you the data. I ran an experiment with my last 20 videos. 10 vertical. 10 horizontal. The results?
Vertical videos:
- Average interactions: 138 - Average views: 2,041
Horizontal videos:
- Average interactions: 161 - Average views: 3,869 We’re talking about almost TWICE as many views. Why such a massive difference? It all comes down to USER EXPERIENCE. In LinkedIn’s efforts to increase video visibility on their platform, they’ve actually done the opposite. They wanted to display videos like Instagram and TikTok. So instead of having it show up like a regular post in the feed, they make it more like a reel. Which means the caption lives inside the video. And you have to press the button NOT ONCE but TWICE to open up the caption and read it. Even then, the caption pulls up in a separate screen outside of the normal feed. This experience doesn’t work for LinkedIn because people aren’t on LinkedIn to scroll videos. They want to scroll their feed, find what’s interesting, then decide whether to continue reading or watch a video. The vertical video experience doesn’t allow that. However… Landscape videos show up the same way as images do in the feed. People can read the hook, choose to continue reading the text, AND then watch the video. It’s a much smoother user experience. One that’s actually suited to the LinkedIn platform.
But here’s what I find really interesting…
The user experience for vertical video ads is the same as watching horizontal. You get the text at the top. You can open additional text in the normal feed. People can choose whether to watch. 🤔
Does this mean video is less valuable on LinkedIn? Absolutely not.
It's also still the best way to repurpose your thoughts and insights into written content for texts, emails, and blogs. So for now... My plan is to hit pause on vertical. Focus on landscape. And wait to see if LinkedIn makes adjustments to the UX. I'd really love to hear some more perspectives on this. Hit reply and let me know your thoughts. Best,
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Coach Danny D
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