LinkedIn is the latest social network to drop Stories

STORIES are over on LinkedIn. After Twitter, it's the professional social network's turn to say goodbye to its Stories format. Indeed, the platform has decided to put an end to these short-form ephemeral videos, which failed to meet user expectations.

The Story format clearly isn't for everyone. While TikTok has announced plans to launch its own take on Stories, LinkedIn is moving in the opposite direction by removing the format from the platform by the end of September. Liz Li, senior director of product at LinkedIn, revealed this change in the platform's functionality, August 31: "As part of this change, we'll remove the current Stories experience by the end of September, as we work on the new experience."

More permanent videos

While the platform plans to end Stories in their current form, the format is still in development at LinkedIn. The professional network said that it wants to better adapt the Story format to the needs of its users: "We want to embrace mixed media and creative tools of Stories in a consistent way across our platform, while working to integrate it more tightly with your professional identity."

In a trial phase since February 2020, the Story format is clearly not favored by LinkedIn users, who prefer permanent content to ephemeral creations. According to feedback reported by Liz Li, users are more inclined to create permanent videos to better reflect their personality and career path: "we assumed people wouldn't want informal videos attached to their profile, and that ephemerality would reduce barriers that people feel about posting. 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," explains the LinkedIn senior director of product.

While LinkedIn may have shelved ephemeral videos for now, the experience was nonetheless helpful for identifying tools that the platform's users might like. According to the professional social network, users are looking for more creative tools to make videos more engaging on the platform, with features such as stickers. After TikTok launched a "TikTok Resumes" initiative for sharing video CVs, LinkedIn also highlights a desire among users to make professional videos for the platform.

Note that Twitter pulled its Fleets Story format at the beginning of August to better focus on its audio endeavors with Twitter Spaces.