If there’s one great idea that could absolutely not backfire and result in losing your job, it’s posting short TikTok-like videos on a professional social platform like LinkedIn.
Clearly, I’m being sarcastic, but LinkedIn is serious. The company is testing the idea of running short social videos on its app. With short, vertical videos constantly growing in popularity on other platforms from YouTube to Instagram, it only makes sense for LinkedIn to try to get a piece of that pie, even if it seems like it could be disastrous for users.
The new video feed was spotted by LinkedIn user Austin Null. From there, TechCrunch reached out to the Microsoft-owned social network to confirm that a short video feed is really in testing to come to the app.
In a video demoing the new feed, Null showed the video feed tucked into the app’s navigation bar in a Video tab. Tapping the button launches a vertical feed of videos you can swipe through. It looks similar to the video sections found on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and others, though the footage should lean more toward professional content than people dancing to meme songs. LinkedIn didn’t share details regarding how the feed determines which videos to show users. We have to assume some sort of algorithm will be in play that’ll show videos based on the kind of videos you’ve previously interacted with.
If you stumble across a video you enjoy, you can like it, leave a comment, or share it with other users on LinkedIn, just as you would any other piece of content on the professional social network.
To me, this seems like a terrible idea and a great way to get fired from your job for posting something you shouldn’t. Anyone choosing to engage with video on the platform must be incredibly careful what they say and do, as some extra scrutiny will undoubtedly apply to videos. Between wearing unprofessional clothing, saying things they shouldn’t about their company, or even accidentally showing a secret in their workspace, so many things could go wrong for the people posting videos.
If videos stay within a realm that would be considered safe, they could be rather dull since playing it safe rarely results in exciting videos. If this LinkedIn feature takes off, there could be some interesting learning videos from the new video feed, but we’ll have to wait and see.
