An expert guide to drumming up business for your brand.

In fun forgotten piece of cinema history, it’s reported that when Thomas Edison received the patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph, in 1882, he immediately took a selfie with it and posted the update to his Instagram with the hashtag “#blessed” attached.

After all, that’s good marketing.

And as amusing as that made-up anecdote might (or might not) be to you, it’s meant to illustrate a point about the modern age of marketing and brand recognition. You’re only as connected and out there as you make yourself.

This means to succeed and grow a business—especially in film or video production—in today’s day and age, you need to be active on social media and work to stay engaged with your audience and prospective clients.

Let’s focus today’s lesson on the art of LinkedIn business development. Here are the best tips for growing your video business via LinkedIn: whether you’re a solo shooter, a small video editing team leader, or a large video agency marketing/sales executive.

1. Create Your Company/Brand Page

In the past we’ve covered how to create and build your own personal LinkedIn account as a film and video professional. However, sometimes that’s not enough to succeed in this industry. This is especially true if you’ve decided to establish yourself as a brand or company rather than as person.

May individuals may choose to establish their own brand. More and more, creatives find themselves banding together to create small LLCs or collectives where they can share work, clients, and resources. Regardless of how you get there, if you do have your own company or brand to promote, starting a company/brand page on LinkedIn is your first step.

For the simple nuts-and-bolts, follow this guide on LinkedIn’s own page.

2. Include All of Your Marketing Materials

We’re assuming here that if you have your own (or are part of an established) video production company, you will have your own marketing materials and assets. These include a logo, marketing copy (outlining who you are and what you do / services you offer), and, ideally, a sizzle reel.

(Don’t have a sizzle reel? Here’s why you need one. Plus, here’s all the assets you need to make one.)

LinkedIn doesn’t allow for too much information, but filling out all of the relevant info about your company and uploading all your images and assets is an easy way to make your brand look real and professional.

3. Establish a Point of Contact

The real trick for building business for your brand on LinkedIn is to establish a clear and thorough line of contact. If you’re a company with a small marketing team or interns, don’t pawn off the work of maintaining communications with someone who might not be as interested in growing your business as you are.

Many businesses will put a generic welcome post on their LinkedIn profile with an easy-to-click “contact us” option that usually directs to a catch-all email. While this might be an excellent method to keep lines open, I’d recommend against keeping things vague and general in favor of letting people know exactly whom they will be reaching out to.

4. Connect Your Brand to Your Profile

If you want to get new clients and work on LinkedIn, put yourself as the main contact point and keep yourself reliable. If this means putting your name and profile on the page so that people know who to follow up with, do that.

If you want to remain a bit anonymous, at least connect your profile so that LinkedIn knows, and be sure to check your messages and inbox frequently. Regardless, the goal is to make your brand feel authentic and accountable; no one wants to deal with a mysterious brand of unknown origins. (At least not in this video industry.)

5. Reach out to Your Network

At the end of the day, your company or brand’s network is only going to be as good as your own. If you’re launching your business, don’t hesitate or hide the fact that it’s your project. Reach out to your friends, family, and all of your work colleagues and contemporaries.

Consider making a grand, sweeping public post to get things started highlighting your new venture and outlining what your brand is and what you plan to do with it. (Bonus tip: always have a call to action imploring people to reach out in a specific way or for a particular need.)

6. Establish Yourself as a Subject Matter Expert

For many starting in film and video, the urge might be to cast your net as wide as possible regarding what types of projects and work you can handle. From there, the name of the game is building you and your company’s brand overall. This means establishing yourself as a subject matter in your relevant field.

However, in my experience, the more niche and specific you can be about your strengths and skills, the better. No one reaches out to a video editing company because they’re the most open-ended; they reach out because they know company can do a particular project better than anyone else.

Finally, the best advice for building your company’s page, your page, or just succeeding in the film and video industry is to simply put yourself out there and stay active in your relevant communities. Yes, this even means more than just posting online.

Put yourself out there in your local film scene. Go to networking events, make connections, help out friends on their film projects, and ultimately grow a base in the real world. That being said, it helps your cause to double your efforts online.

Consider joining different discussion groups, LinkedIn communities, or even a Discord server to stay in touch with friends and colleagues. If you have a new project to show off, post it online and tell people how it was a success. There’s never such a thing as too much exposure to your community and friends.

Cover image via maradon 333.

Hopefully, these tips and tricks for business development have been helpful to you. If you’d like to read more articles on growing your brand and getting new clients, check out these additional resources below.