Product Strategy for LinkedIn Stories and Creator Suites
Adapt Stories to LinkedIn and activate creators
Problem:
LinkedIn is not a good discovery platform. This stifles and limits creators’ reach on the network.
Background:
Three years ago, I used to be one of those bro-etry writers/creators writing on LinkedIn. It taught me to write clickbaity content and it did get me noticed for jobs. It was fantastic.
Then LinkedIn shifted their algorithm, and my home feed was filled with “talking head” videos. It was also the beginning of hashtags, but it was random and there was no rhyme or reasons for which hashtags to use.
Now, the LinkedIn newsfeed has become more tamed with the occasional political post. There is also the Trending News section, that aggregates selected profiles’ insights about the news.
Content relevancy has improved for viewers throughout the years. Creators have been adapting to the changing LinkedIn newsfeed but it has not been a stable environment for creators to build a large sustainable follower base.
Jobs to Be Done:
Here are example goals from LinkedIn creators:
- Get hired by being in front of recruiters, hiring managers, and businesses
- Make sales by building more business development opportunities
- Get “eyeballs” and clicks on promoting their company’s latest campaigns
The common underlying job is to publish content and grow awareness and exposure beyond 1st connections and throughout the whole LinkedIn network.
Opportunities:
LinkedIn can do better at highlighting creators’ content to help creators extend reach. LinkedIn has built new content formats (Stories, Live Video, “Cover Story”) but “it relies quite a lot on people using the format successfully.”
LinkedIn Spotlight — Best Stories and encourage “remix”
I am watching the stories from my 1st connection. Unfortunately, they are really terrible content. It might be a screenshot or a flyer or a funny picture… and the run time is so low. There is often no context of what they are talking about in a short period of time. And I was struggling to context switch and read the text in every Story. Stories were built for FOMO, and there is nothing truly FOMO about the content.
Unlike Snapchat, there isn’t a place to watch high-quality Stories from folks beyond my LinkedIn connections. And unlike TikTok, “Monkey See-Monkey Do” creators need to be inspired, copy, and remix others to generate new content. See Youtube, Snapchat, TikTok.
LinkedIn can create a dedicated page, ala Snapchat Spotlight, or aka LinkedIn Spotlight. Show the best Stories ranked by most watched-till-completion. The best content will surface like the cream of the crop.
LinkedIn can create a dedicated page, ala Snapchat Spotlight, or aka LinkedIn Spotlight. Show the best Stories ranked by most watched-till-completion. The best content will surface like the cream of the crop.
#hashtags — Getting discover beyond 1st connections
It’s hard for me to speak on behalf of all creators. When I was posting 3 years ago to find a job or consultant opportunities, I would have wanted a better SEO/algorithm engine to reach beyond my 1st connections.
I was writing about growth product management. There wasn’t really a way to build “fans.” I joined those “You upvote me, I upvote you” groups to hack the system. But it didn’t get me to the right audience; it just sways me in unknown directions, based on those other mini-creators who upvoted. Or you obnoxiously tag “mention” your product friends and force them to read your post to get up in the feed… It was basically spray-and-pray to find your audience.
I wanted to create content that the “whole-LinkedIn-world” could see. Linkedin was sort of at the beginning of hashtags during that time… so there was no understanding of the impression volume for a certain hashtag. Now we know the follower volume of some hashtags on your LinkedIn Discover tab, would the next step expose the long-tail hashtags audience volume?
Exposing long-tail hashtag keywords will allow creators to uncover their target audience.
Exposing long-tail hashtag keywords will allow creators to uncover their target audience.
Adapt Stories to LinkedIn
According to Bangaly Kaba, former head of growth at Instagram, Instagram users were not posting to the feed anymore. Instagram Stories was developed as an easy format and a less-pressure way to post because of its ephemeral format.
What is the job of LinkedIn Stories? If the goal for the LinkedIn creators is to grow exposure, then the poor content and the 24-hour format restrict opportunities to build momentum.
What is the job of LinkedIn Stories? If the goal for the LinkedIn creators is to grow exposure, then the poor content and the 24-hour format restrict opportunities to build momentum.
LinkedIn needs to encourage creators to create high-quality FOMO content.
- Offer exposure in the feed algorithm and reward creators for using Stories.
- Make Stories FOMO by adding polling features, and prizes or Raffle contests.
- Extend Stories watch time. There is no reason to have a shortened Stories time. Content on LinkedIn is different, let viewers digest the content.
- Extend Stories beyond 24 hours as it accumulates watched-till-completion.
- Alert Stories notification by topics and #hashtags.
- Tie posting with Stories. After a user finished posting, ask them to repurpose the post into a Story.
- Allow all Companies to have a Live Video feature and create tools to video and audio cut into Stories.
Success Metrics:
- LinkedIn Spotlight
— drive stories view and engagement by 20% WoW in Q3
— drive stories creation by 10% WoW in Q3 - Add features and increase watch-time on Stories
— increase stories engagement by 30% - Long Tail Hashtags
— increase content by X% to top 500 hashtags
— increase content by X% to the next 5000 hashtags
— increase followers by X% to the next 5000 hashtags
— increase content engagement by X% to the next 5000 hashtags
Product Sequencing:
- LinkedIn Spotlight, show the cream of the crop content
- Long-tail #hashtags and help creators expand exposure
- Add special features onto LinkedIn Stories
- Encourage creators to repurpose content into Stories
- Reward the best content
- Add more tooling to increase new Stories idea and format
Takeaway:
From taking Li Jin’s Creator Economy Course, I learned that creators top 3 worries (according to Justin Moore’s creator market fit) are:
- Psychological — dealing with self-confidence, trolls, and imposter syndrome
- Algorithmic — that a “black-box” can delete or de-rank you and your content
- Financial — forecasting, channel and sponsorship diversification
Creators on LinkedIn are putting themselves and their content out there to reach potential future employers, future connections, and potential business clients. Creators will continue to grow hesitant about using LinkedIn without a better understanding of reach and strategies. The lack of discovery and best practices along with the post and pray model will stifle creator creativity — despite LinkedIn copying all the multimedia format to reinvigorate engagement.
Help creators (job seekers, sales, promoters) with understanding reach and how to tap into exposure inside LinkedIn. And showcase the best content (Stories, Live Videos, “Cover Story”) and reward content with further exposure. Let LinkedIn creators copy and remix.
