This development comes at a time when more people are working from home and perhaps missing out on the everyday conversations and connections that they used to have with colleagues in the office.
“In the COVID world, LinkedIn Stories are letting people replace those essential water cooler moments,” explains LinkedIn’s CEO, Ryan Roslansky.
The phased roll-out of LinkedIn Stories is part of a broader drive by the professional networking site to offer value beyond being a platform where users can find career opportunities or candidates. Going forward, LinkedIn aims to become a place where professionals can forge deeper connections with each other and have more conversations about issues related to their industries, work routines and workplace cultures.
Why post a Story?
The value of Stories is that it allows LinkedIn users to converse with peers in a more relaxed way and enhance the connections they have with people in their networks. Members could, for example, use LinkedIn Stories to showcase a new office set-up, ask for timeous interview tips or share advice on how to attain a better work-life balance. Using this tool, people can post videos, images or text to their profiles – in a full-screen format.
For brands, LinkedIn Stories provides another tool for building relationships with customers and potential business partners, or making sure viewers are kept up to date with the latest news. This is the perfect channel for sharing insights on a trending topic in the media headlines, offering spontaneous advice to clients, announcing a new product launch or letting people know about a limited-time-only offer.
While it is never advisable to post content that is totally unrelated to work, this new tool does make people can feel more comfortable starting “lightweight” conversations related to their working lives and career interests. This is because Stories allow for private feedback – and all Story posts disappear after 24 hours. This way, people don’t have to worry about the content being permanently attached to their profiles.
How to post your first LinkedIn Story
- Open your LinkedIn app
- Tap the circle with your photo and a plus sign in the upper left corner to open your camera
- You can then record a video or take a photo directly through the app
- Alternatively, you can upload an existing video or image
- Add a sticker or text
Once you have created and posted your first Story, go into that Story and simply tap the plus icon on the top left or bottom right corner to create a new Story.
More changes
Other recent updates to the LinkedIn experience include fresh new design elements and new search functionalities. Users can now also edit or delete sent messages, as well as react quickly to messages using emojis.
Soon, members will also be able to kick off a meeting using video chat directly within a messaging thread – using a range of third-party providers such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams.