Everything You Need to Know About LinkedIn Stories for Pages

LinkedIn Stories, which officially debuted for members of the professional network as part of a major visual redesign last September, were rolled out to pages Tuesday. A small number of pages worldwide received advanced word so that they could get started using the new feature immediately, and the professional network will use Stories of its own to fill page administrators in, along with other channels including ads on LinkedIn, a blog post, email and organic social posts. There is no minimum number of followers for pages to begin using Stories, and all pages and page admins will immediately have access to a swipe up feature that enables them to guide readers to a URL, such as a landing page, where they can maximize engagement and conversions. Much like versions of the format on other social platforms, LinkedIn Stories are full-screen and ephemeral, available for 24 hours and enable members to share feedback via private messaging. LinkedIn began beta-testing Stories last February before their debut last September, and the professional network kicked off a beta-test of Stories Ads last December. Page admins that got early notice about the rollout of Stories also received a list of best practices from LinkedIn, which said in its introduction: “Use Stories to educate, connect with and inform your LinkedIn page followers. Stories can be used for full-funnel content objectives across these use cases, whether your campaign aims to build awareness, inspire engagement or drive bottom funnel conversions.” Page admins using Stories for education, or to demonstrate thought leadership, can share product demos or best practice; post tips and tricks relevant to their industry or target audience; and highlight new research and data insights if their goal is to promote awareness. Engagement can be boosted ty @mentioning thought leaders and influencers, while the swipe up feature can be used to drive conversions by directing readers to an industry report, a product page, or other relevant content. When using Stories for Connection, or to humanize the brand, ways to raise awareness include: spotlighting employees, customers or users; celebrating company milestones; demonstrating how the company or organization helps out during challenging times; and articulating its corporate social responsibility. Admins can @mention employees, customers or users to make shoutouts personal and boost engagement, and the swipe up feature can take readers to more information about the brand’s values, culture and initiatives, with an eye toward eventual conversions. Finally, when using Stories to keep audiences informed, actions such as promote events and their recordings; debuting new products or services; sharing behind-the-scenes moments from events and webinars; sharing company news; and highlighting job openings or recruitment efforts can help boost awareness. Engagement can be increased by @mentionong event speakers, company leadership or hiring managers, and the swipe up feature can pave the way for conversions by taking viewers to content such as landing pages, press releases or job listings. On the creative side, LinkedIn wrote, “While we don’t expect brands to abandon their professional brand, we know that members are excited to see brands get a little more playful and fun when it comes to Stories.” The professional network shared the following steps to take and mistakes to avoid: Do: Keep it professional: Members want informative and educational content from brands, and job seekers are more open to human-oriented content.Make content consumable, in bites: A series of quick photos and videos is more effective than one long video.Humanize your brand creative: Add elements that bring the look and feel of Stories from individual creators, such as stickers, native text and @mentions.Aim for a mix of produced—as well as in-the-moment—content: Try to show a new, more authentic side of the brand by mixing in behind-the-scenes or on-the-spot content with regular brand fare.Aim for a mix of video, image and text Stories: This will help keep content fresh, and LinkedIn reminded admins to add captions if the audio track is essential to their message.Repost user-generated content: Share contributions from employees, customers and fans.Repost feed content: Feed posts in need of extra awareness can be shared via Stories.Invest in both organic and paid ads: Use organic Stories to gain a feel for the types of content and media that perform the best, and then incorporate that information into creating Stories Ads. Don’t: Repost your Stories Ad as organic content: LinkedIn cautioned that this content may appear unnatural and lose authenticity.Post a Story without context: While Stories are a visual medium, additional post copy can help explain the takeaway or call to action.Get too casual: LinkedIn wrote, “People love LinkedIn’s professional differentiation and want us to protect it within this inherently more playful and fun content format. Consider how you can pivot your existing content to best fit within the context of LinkedIn.” The professional network also shared best practices for using the swipe up capability in Stories: Warm up the audience: Sharing a series of Story frames prior to the frame containing the link helps bring the necessary context to drive interest and increases the chances of people viewing the full Story and not clicking out midway through.Be explicit: Viewers may not see the CTA button, so tell them to interact with the swipeable link via text, images or stickers in the Story.Follow the 3-2-1 model of content creation: For every swipe up link that leads to a transaction or conversion, share two links with uplifting content and three links to thought leadership content.Try not to overuse it: If clicking to a new link every time doesn’t bring value to readers, they will begin to tune the brand out. LinkedIn also introduced two other features for pages Tuesday: a My Company tab and lead-generation forms in Product Pages. The professional network debuted LinkedIn Elevate in April 2015 as a way for companies to encourage employees to curate and share company content and to measure the effectiveness of those efforts, and it revealed plans last January to integrate Elevate elements into pages and shutter the stand-alone Elevate application. The new My Company tab is aimed at bringing the best features from Elevate directly to pages, including the ability for page admins to curate organic content via a Recommend tool and suggest trending articles for employees via a Content Suggestions tool. A new analytics feature enables page admins to gauge the success of these employee advocacy program, and employee verification for current Elevate customers will be extended to all page admins in the coming months. LinkedIn found in a study it conducted that employees were 60% more likely to engage with posts from coworkers than with content from non-coworkers and 14 times more likely to share page content from their company or organization than to share content from other brands. The professional network introduced Product Pages last December as a dedicated space for customers, experts and users to share experiences with a product and ask questions. The new lead gen forms will help the brands behind those products drive more high-quality leads through the prefilled forms containing members’ profile data. LinkedIn said nearly 10,000 companies have posted over 12,000 products to the Product Pages ecosystem. Senior director of product management Rishi Jobanputra wrote in a blog post Tuesday, “Nearly one year into working from home, so much has changed about the way we work and connect with colleagues and customers. While we’ve seen incredible transformation from the millions of organizations on LinkedIn who have adapted and persevered, many of you have shared just how hard it is to stay connected with your communities … Your success is important to us, especially in today’s virtual environment.”

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Everything You Need to Know About LinkedIn Stories for Pages

The professional network also introduced a My Company tab and lead gen forms in Product Pages

David Cohen

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David Cohen