LinkedIn, so far, has been about your resume, job hunts and work contacts. But now, it seems that the app is trying to become cool. It has just started testing Snapchat-style stories internally to try out a “new conversational format” for business conversations.
According to Pete Davies, who is LinkedIn’s head of content products, the aim is to meet LinkedIn users “where their voices are”. These stories would offer “a lighter, more casual way of interacting in the business-focused world that makes up LinkedIn, instead of the formal messaging and posting that makes up the bulk of interactions on the site”.
For example, Davies imagines that a company might use stories to share “key moments from work events” or “tips and tricks that help us work smarter.”
LinkedIn’s latest attempt at becoming cool might just crash and burn like the video filters they has tried to incorporate in 2018 while trying to copy other social networking apps.
Snapchat introduced stories in 2013 and then Instagram copied the idea and made it more popular in 2016. Other apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube soon followed suit.
However, this is not LinkedIn’s first attempt at dabbling in a social media story format. In 2018 they tested a feature called ‘Student Voices’ that let college students post videos to a camous playlist that was house on top of the LinkedIn app.
Student Voices was, however, restricted to who could use the feature and what they could post. The new story format LinkedIn is testing is expected to have much broader services.
There’s no guarantee that LinkedIn will actually launch stories to the broader public: right now, it’s just being tested internally, with plans for wider public tests “in the coming months.”