LinkedIn Goes Retro With Web Video To Help Educate Users

I like LinkedIn a lot. It's helped a lot of people I know find employees or jobs using its unique networking approach. But I have to confess that I don't really use it all that often. And part of the reason, if I'm honest, is that I haven't used it enough to be terribly comfortable with it. I'm not even sure I know how LinkedIn's founders expect me to use the service.

Turns out there are a lot of confused LinkedIn users, so the company has created a series of tutorial videos to help businesses and professionals learn the ins and outs of the system.

Tutorial videos can be notoriously boring, filled with instruction and very little entertainment value. Thankfully, LinkedIn decided to have a little fun with theirs, by going retro. They're taking 21st century technology back to the 70's and 80s--the heyday of the cheesy training video.

Check out the old-school tone:

There are several videos in the series, and they're all pretty fun. Here's another one:

Look, there's only so many ways to dress up content that, by nature, is pretty dry. Most users need a dash of humor here and there, though, or else their attention span begins to wane.

LinkedIn has created these videos to fill a need--to educate users--but has done so with charm, humor, and their tongue planted firmly in their cheek. I'm not sure you can do tutorial videos much better than that.

Check out the entire series, sponsored by FedEx for some reason, over at LinkedIn's custom-made video site or over on the company's YouTube page.