LinkedIn to scrap its Stories feature and work on short-form videos
LinkedIn has announced that its Stories feature will be decommissioned on September 30 and that it will begin working on a new way to bring short-form films to the site.
LinkedIn revealed the imminent change in order to alert marketers who had already paid advertising that will appear in between Stories. These will be posted on LinkedIn's feed instead, however, individuals that promoted or sponsored Stores directly from their page will have to recreate them.
Story closures affect two types of advertisers. The first group includes brands that plan ad campaigns with images and videos displayed between stories, and advertisers who plan to pay to market their own stories to LinkedIn users' feeds.
"Any image or video ad that you plan to run between stories will instead be shared with the LinkedIn feed," the LinkedIn marketing solutions team said in a blog post.
"If you promoted or sponsored a story directly from your Campaign Manager page, those paid stories will not appear in the LinkedIn feed," said the marketing solutions team, "and they must be recreated in Campaign Manager as a photo or video ad."
In September last year, LinkedIn launched the Stories feature, which was part of a larger web and mobile makeover that included Zoom, BlueJeans, and Teams interfaces to assist professionals to stay connected while working from home.
However, according to LinkedIn, these temporary posts did not work out.
"In developing Stories, we assumed people wouldn't want informal videos attached to their profile, and that ephemerality would reduce barriers that people feel about posting," wrote LinkedIn's Senior Director of Product Liz Li in a blog post. "Turns out, you want to create lasting videos that tell your professional story in a more personal way and that showcase both your personality and expertise."
If LinkedIn's intentions to build a short-form video feature are successful, it will join platforms like Snapchat and Instagram in creating their own TikTok-style streams.
Most LinkedIn users don't share the same information on their personal social media accounts, but some well-known TikTokers share job advice, interview suggestions, and resume advice, so LinkedIn's move to video may not be as strange as it appears.
Users also desire "more creative tools to generate entertaining videos," according to Li. Users desired more creative capabilities in Stories, which featured stickers and prompts.