What You Need to Know About the LinkedIn Stories Feature Should you use LinkedIn Stories?
By Syed Balkhi
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
This year, over 500 million people will watch an Instagram Story every day, and over one third of those videos are business-related. Not surprisingly, LinkedIn announced earlier this year that it's testing a similar feature called LinkedIn Stories.
According to a blog post written by Pete Davies, LinkedIn's head of Consumer Products, the company was looking for a new way for members to interact in a professional context that's not too heavy. "(Stories) spread for a good reason: they offer a lightweight, fun way to share an update without it having to be perfect or attached to your profile forever," Davies wrote.
But should you use LinkedIn Stories? Sure, it's similar to other platforms' stories features and would be easy to pick up, but should you use it?
In a word, yes. With LinkedIn Stories, you'll have a unique opportunity to show off your business from a new perspective and engage with your audience in a way they're used to.
3 ways to leverage LinkedIn Stories
If you've already been posting Stories on other channels, it won't be that difficult to pivot over to LinkedIn Stories once it's released to all users. Here are three ways you can use it for your business.
1. Share Q&As featuring thought leaders.
People love to follow thought leaders on LinkedIn, so why not feature them on a Stories Q&A session? Choose one that has a good following on LinkedIn, so you bring awareness to your brand and cross-promote it with your chosen person. Remember, the thought leader might already be inside your organization, making it even easier to create.
You can film the Q&A session with pre-planned questions, but if LinkedIn follows Instagram's lead, they may also add in a feature where people can ask questions directly during the session.
Related: LinkedIn Adds Audio Recording Option to Help With Name Pronunciation
2. Share customer testimonial stories.
No matter what generation you belong to, chances are you trust recommendations from people than any other type of content marketing. That's what makes testimonials such a valuable marketing tool.
As millennials and Gen Z become company decision-makers, they'll be looking for products and services that are proven to make their professional work lives easier. They'll create the shortlist of vendors, so filming your happy customers on LinkedIn Stores could be a great way to capture their attention.
3. Use stories as a new customer success channel.
As Davies wrote, "The sequencing of the Stories format is great for sharing key moments (and) the full-screen narrative style makes it easy to share tips and tricks that help us work smarter."
Meaning, you could create Stories that explain how your products help professionals work more efficiently, show off how they solve industry-wide problems, and more. You can even adapt your text-based content for the same purpose, engaging people differently through LinkedIn.
Related: How to Quickly Update Your LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn Stories is coming
As LinkedIn tests Stories and rolls it out globally, it'll be interesting to see what features they include. According to some Brazilian users who have it already:
- Stories are only available through the mobile app.
- Members will be able to share their Stories directly with other LinkedIn members via message.
- The maximum length of a Story is 20 seconds.
- Members will be able to control what profile information is displayed in the Stories viewer list through their account settings.
Introducing Stories makes sense for LinkedIn. Social media engagement data shows that Stories are how the next generation of social media users communicate with each other. Instagram's seen an 80 percent increase in the time that users spend watching videos on the platform, and videos receive twice the engagement of photos on it. LinkedIn is merely looking to capitalize on those engagement numbers by offering professionals a way to create these short-form videos that are entertaining, informative, and are increasing in use.
LinkedIn Stories will be another channel to demonstrate your brand's or business' creativity and authenticity in a way that'll build and nurture your professional relationships. People at all stages of their careers can use Stories to become more productive and successful.
