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Publishers’ event videos gain traction on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is encouraging publishers that are part of its pre-roll video advertising program to post more on the platform, and publishers are meeting that demand with little additional effort, in part by clipping videos taken at their conferences and other events.
According to Adam Banicki, Fortune’s head of video, Fortune has signed three brand deals for the Wire program, which launched last summer and lets publishers sell 3- to 15-second-long pre-roll ads on their editorial videos. Both the publisher and LinkedIn can sell that inventory.
Videos from live events in particular have been part of those deals, including one to two minute clips from Fortune’s conferences. A fourth campaign is being developed to go live later this quarter, and will include both video series and video clips from events, he said.
Fortune is running a few videos every day on LinkedIn. Videos that focus on an interview with a subject expert do particularly well on the platform, according to Banicki.
For example, a video of football star Tom Brady at the Fortune Global Forum event talking about the role of leaders received 9.5 million impressions, 1.6 million views and 110,000 clicks, with a click-through rate of 1.1%, according to Fortune. Another video featuring actress Halle Berry at the Fortune Most Powerful Women summit discussing the difficulty of getting funding for her company Respin – focused on menopause care – garnered 9.1 million impressions, 1.8 million views and 68,000 clicks, with a click-through rate of 0.74%.
“We are seeing strong anecdotal performance when publishers share video clips from their events on LinkedIn,” a LinkedIn spokesperson said.
Publishers have found they can monetize videos they would have produced anyway from their events by posting clips on LinkedIn, thanks to the platform’s Wire program. That means they’re making money from a new revenue stream, with content they already have or had plans to produce editorially, according to conversations with three publishing execs. All three declined to share how much they were making in additional revenue from the Wire program.
Publishers like Fortune and Forbes are cutting down longer videos created for their own platforms or YouTube into clips to distribute on LinkedIn.
“Fortune has such a large archive that it’s been relatively easy” to sell videos to sponsors, Banicki said. “It’s not any additional video on our end, but it’s a way to monetize a platform that we’re already seeing a lot of success with from an audience growth perspective.”
A Forbes spokesperson said its existing production of video content from its events and other daily coverage is enough to fill LinkedIn’s demand for relevant content for the Wire program – without having to change its video strategy.
Forbes has increased its monthly postings of videos on LinkedIn, especially as new clients “have wanted to align their preroll with our extensive library,” the spokesperson said.
A third publishing executive – who traded anonymity for candor – said they are doing the same: talking to clients about video content they have produced, and offering relevant videos to package up for a LinkedIn pre-roll campaign. They framed these efforts as a good way for publishers to post more video on the platform to test the environment, with the added benefit of promotion by an advertiser.
“[LinkedIn] isn’t our largest social platform, but it is our fastest growing one,” Fortune’s Banicki said. “Honestly it could be our largest one by 2025. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Video views for Fortune started picking up with LinkedIn’s increased focus on video in the latter half of 2024, according to Banicki. In 2024, Fortune had 74.1 million views on LinkedIn. In comparison, the publisher had 150.4 million views on TikTok, 123.6 million views on Instagram, 3.1 million views on Twitter and 9.1 million views on YouTube Shorts, according to the company.
“[LinkedIn is] somewhere we can be successful by not changing our approach or strategy,” Banicki said. “We’re monetizing on a social platform when that has been a challenge for publishers to do.”
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