LinkedIn to scrap Stories function as it shifts focus to short-form video

LinkedIn is shutting down its Stories feature less than a year after it was introduced in June 2020. This news also comes nearly a month after Twitter officially phased out its Fleets function. In a LinkedIn blog post, the company announced that the Stories feature would no longer be available, with effect from 30 September. According to LinkedIn, any image or video ads that were scheduled to run in between Stories will instead be shared to the LinkedIn feed after the end of this month. However, a promoted or sponsored story from a user's page in  Campaign Manager will not appear on the LinkedIn feed. Instead, it needs to be re-created in Campaign Manager as an image or a video ad.  

LinkedIn senior director of product, Liz Li, said in the blog post that LinkedIn stories was a fun and casual way to share quick video updates. Despite only launching it last year, the company has managed to learn a lot from this feature in a short period of time.

"Now, we're taking those learnings to evolve the Stories format into a reimagined video experience across LinkedIn that’s even richer and more conversational", Li added. Moving forward, the company would like to embrace mixed media and creative tools of Stories in a consistent way across its platform, while working to integrate it more tightly with the user's professional identity. It will also focus on how it can provide a short-form interactive video format that is unique to LinkedIn's platform. 

According to Li, LinkedIn had two key takeaways from the Stories feature. Initially, the company assumed that users would not be open to the idea of having informal videos attached to the profile. However, the company has learnt that users would like to create lasting videos that tell a professional story in a personal manner, showcasing both the personality and expertise of the person.

Moreover, users would also like to have more creative tools to make engaging videos. The Stories feature allowed members to use stickers and "The Question of The Day" prompts to make videos more creative and engaging. However, members would like to have more options to spruce up these videos in a professional context. 

Twitter's Fleets also met its end last month. Fleets was launched with the aim of sharing momentary thoughts and help start conversations, sticking around only for 24 hours. It was created as a rival of Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories, which were both launched in 2016 and 2017 respectively to compete with Snapchat's Stories feature.

Photo courtesy: 123RF

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