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LinkedIn tells advertisers it’s shutting down its stories function

LinkedIn has told advertisers on Tuesday its shutting down Stories on videos on 30 September 2021, after only launching the feature in June 2020.

The social media platform, which is following in Twitter’s footsteps after it announced it will shut down its Story function, said any image or video ads that are scheduled to run in between Stories will instead be shared to the LinkedIn feed.

LinkedIn will also be removing the current Stories experience and users will no longer be able to create Stories for Pages. The platform added if a user has promoted or sponsored a Story directly from their Page in Campaign Manager, these paid Stories will not appear in the LinkedIn feed, and they will need to be recreated in Campaign Manager as an image or video ad.

LinkedIn senior director of product, Liz Li, wrote in a blog post:

“We have learned that you want something different on LinkedIn. You wish videos could live on your profile, not disappear. 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.

“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.”

As a result, LinkedIn will incorporate these elements into its next video project, which it will now develop in replacement of the Stories product.

The closure of Stories affects two types of advertisers, brands that planned ad campaigns with images and videos that appear in between Stories, and advertisers that planned to pay to promote their own Stories to LinkedIn users’ feeds.

“As we reimagine what is next, we’re focusing on how we can provide you with a short-form, rich interactive video format that is unique to our platform and that better helps you reach and engage your audiences on LinkedIn,” Li added. “We’re always excited to try out new things and learn as we go, and will continue to share updates along the way.”

Meanwhile, similar to the Stories feature on Instagram and SnapChat, YouTube and Facebook,  TikTok has also began to experiment with a disappearing Stories feature.

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